MAIN  LIBRARY  AGRIC.  DCpf. 


TALPA; 

OB   THE 

CHRONICLES  OF  A  CLAY  FARM. 


T  A  L  P  A: 


CHRONICLES  OF  A  CLAY  FARM. 

i 

^n  ^gritttlittral  jfrxfttttl. 


BY   C.  W.  H. 


WITH    AN 

BY  LEWIS  F.  ALLEN. 

TO    WHICH    ARE    ADDED 

TWO  PRIZE  ESSAYS  ON  TILE  DRAINAGE. 


BIDKffTEM  DICERE  VERUM.' 


BUFFALO : 

DANFORTH,  HAWLEY  &  CO 
1854. 


Entered  according  to  act  of  Congress,  in, the  year  1853,  \>y 

D  iX  ft  F'O  R  T  HV(  ri  ^  W/t  it  Y |  &    CO., 
In  the  Clerk's  office'df  the  Ristrict'Court  fer  the  Northern  District 


OffFT. 


Birrcot  jpod  bj 

ERASTUS  F.    BKADLE, 

D0FFALO. 


TO 

ALL  AMERICANS  WHO  OUGHT  TO  BE, 

AS   WELL    AS 
TO    THOSE    WHO    ARE    INTERESTED,    EITHER   AS    PHILOSOPHERS 

IN    THE 
THEORY,  OR  AS  FARMERS  IN  THE  PRACTICE  OF 

AGRICULTURE, 
IS  THIS  BOOK  INSCRIBED  BY 

THE  PUBLISHERS. 


'"  Ovo,u-a-rwv  Sw-fv 
Science  and  Practice  differ  but  in  name, 
When  rightly  viewed,  their  import  is  the  same 


M66976 


LIST  OF  VIGNETTES. 

BY  GEORGE  CRCIKSHANK. 


A  Sketch — Introductory, 25 

"  Has  it  ever  been  tried  with  a  Spirit-level  ? "   .       .       .  31 

"Down  went  the  Fences,  notwithstanding,"      .       .       .  *71 
''  The  bright  little  sentinels  of  Heaven  were  taking  one 

by  one  their  watch-posts," 80 

"The  Wizard  of  the  Pacific,"      ......  90 

"  Eheu !  quant  us  equis,  quantus  erat  sudor 

Viris!" .HI 

"  We  shall  learn  of  him  another  and  a  greater  lesson, 

some  day," 187 

"  Incontinently  bent  on  their  baptism  of  native  mud,"  215 

''The  willing  giant  stands  idly  panting  and  smoking,"  226 

The  End, 294 


CONTENTS. 


[JFftst  Secfes.] 
I. 

PAGE 

THE  WASTE, 17 

II. 
THE  DEVIL-ON-TI1REE-STICKS, 26 

III. 
A  PRACTICAL  BEGINNING,- 32 

IV. 
A  CONVERT, AND  A  HERETIC, 40 

V. 

COMBINATION  AND  COMMINUTION, 47 

VI. 

CALX AND  RECALCULATION, 56 

VIL 

EARTH-STOPPING, 63 

VIII. 

"TRUTH  AT  THE  BOTTOM  OF  A" — MARL-PIT,   ...   72 
IX. 

FALLOWS AND  WHAT  FOLLOWS, 81 

X. 

THEORY  AND  PRACTICE, 91 

XL 
DISSOLVING  VIEWS, 107 

XII 

A  WORD  AT  PARTING, 112 


Xll  INTRODUCTION. 

arrest  the  attention  of  all  who  feel  an  interest  in  their  several 
subjects.  They  describe  the  process  by  which  the  most  for- 
bidding surfaces  of  swamp  and  bog  land,  (leaving  out  the  wide 
fen-lands,  like  those  of  Lincoln  and  Cambridgeshires,)  by  a 
moderate  outlay  of  capital,  may  be  turned  into  productive  fields, 
teeming  with  agricultural  wealth  —  a  labor  of  the  past  century, 
in  which  the  landholders  and  farmers  of  England  and  Scot- 
land have  been  engaged,  and  in  the  results  of  which  their 
agricultural  products  have  been  quadrupled,  their  population 
trebled,  and  now  enjoying  more  of  the  comforts  and  the 
luxuries  of  life  than  at  any  former  period.  Not  only  is  the 
work  of  draining  the  lands  of  England  and  Scotland  still  in 
active  progress,  both  in  their  waste  lands,  and  such  as  have 
been  hitherto  considered  arable,  but  the  extensive  swamp  and 
peat  soils  of  Ireland,  hitherto  unproductive  and  valueless,  save 
for  inconsiderable  purposes  of  fuel,  are  rapidly  becoming  fertile 
and  productive  under  the  improving  process  so  graphically 
described  by  the  discriminating  author  of  this  book.  The 
simple  work  of  drainage  applied  to  .the  waste  lands  of  Ireland 
will  add  untold  millions  to  her  productive  wealth,  and  enable 
that  unfortunate  country  to  sustain  in  full  abundance  a  larger 
popxilation  than  have  existed  upon  her  soil  up  to  the  present 
time  —  a .  great  share  of  them,  in  the  direst  penury,  on  the 
potato  alone. 

That  equally  beneficial  results  may  be  derived  to  the  agri- 
culture of  the  United  States  by  draining,  is  evident.  From 
the  experiments  which  have  been  made  within  a  few  years 
past,  it  is  ascertained  that  large  tracts  of  hitherto  worthless 


INTRODUCTION.  X1H 

land  have  been  made  permanently  productive,  and  in  pecuniary 
value  have  risen  to  the  highest  price  of  our  most  favored  soils 
All  this  has  been  achieved  at  a  very  moderate  outlay  of  capi- 
tal, in  comparison  with  their  increased  value,  and  added  largely 
to  the  immediate  wealth  of  their  several  localities.  Very  con- 
siderable tracts  of  swamp  land,  perfectly  drainable,  still  h'e 
unproductive  in  almost  every  county  in  the  United  States, 
even  where  the  country  is  called  well  cultivated.  These  lands 
require  but  the  simple  process  described  in  this  book,  to  become 
productive,  not  only  of  the  best  crops,  but  in  frequent  instances 
may  yield  vast  stores  of  fertility  in  their  surplus  deposits  to  the 
surrounding  lands,  and  more  than  all,  in  giving  health  and 
salubrity  to  an  atmosphere  hitherto  poisoned  by  their  malaria. 
All  this  is  matter  of  proof,  from  numerous  trials,  establishing 
their  value  far  beyond  the  doubtful  results  of  a  single  experi- 
ment, or  the  speculations  of  a  plausible  theory. 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  country  is  not  alone  in  the  indul- 
gence of  bark-bound  prejudice  to  new  plans  and  improvements 
in  agriculture — a  profession,  we  grieve  to  say,  more  enslaved 
by  that  enemy  to  improvement  in  ah1  professions  than  any 
other  we  can  mention.  The  people  of  no  country  whatever 
are  more  wedded  to  old  saws  and  maxims,  or  more  doggedly 
adhere  to  old  practices,  than  the  people  of  England  and  Scot- 
land. The  new  systems  of  agriculture,  which  now  give  them 
a  greater  product  to  the  acre  than  almost  any  other  country, 
Belgium  perhaps  excepted,  have  been  forced  upon  the  English 
farmer  by  the  sagacious  statesmen  and  landholders  who  have 
the  power  to  effect  such  systems.  It  is  one  of  the  striking 


XIV  INTRODUCTION. 

results  of  the  recent  change  in  the  corn  laws  of  that  country, 
•with  lower  prices,  and  extensive  imports  of  foreign  grain, 
rents  of  farms  still  keep  up,  and  in  some  instances  increase, 
from  the  benefits  derived  in  the  extended  drainage  of  lands, 
and  the  application  of  new  manures  to  them.  Such  advan- 
tages are  now  conceded  by  the  tenant  farmers  themselves,  a 
majority  of  whom  are  as  actively  engaged  in  the  improvement 
of  their  lands  under  long  leases,  as  their  landlords,  who  hold 
the  benefits  of  such  improvement  in  reversion. 

The  American  farmer  has  his  prejudices  also.  But  the 
avenues  of  intelligence  are  fully  open  to  him.  The  proprietor 
of  his  own  acres,  his  self-interest  excites  inquiry  into  the  read- 
iest means  of  rendering  them  productive;  and  the  spreading 
before  him  in  understandable  and  attractive  shape  the  requi- 
site information,  will  usually  meet  a  ready  response  in  his 
efforts  at  the  improvement  of  both  his  personal  and  pecuniary 
condition.  These  pages  contain  much  practical  instruction 
in  manures  and  cultivation,  as  well  as  in  draining ;  and  with 
the  exception  of  what  may  relate  to  "  Landlord  and  Tenant,' 
in  England,  and  some  other  matter  appurtenant  thereto,  (which, 
by  the  way,  it  will  be  quite  instructive  for  an  American  to 
understand,)  we  scarcely  know  of  an  equal  amount  of  reading 
which  he  can  study  with  more  profit.  In  the  hope  that  this 
work  will  impart  the  full  measure  of  benefit  to  the  husbandly 
of  our  country  that  may  be  desired,  it  is  cordially  commended 
to  the  American  public. 


INTRODUCTION.  XV 

The  notes  appended  to  the  several  subjects  discussed,  are 
such  as  may  throw  light  on  their  application  to  the  different 
soils  and  climates  of  the  United  States.  Originally  written 
for  England,  materially  differing  in  soil,  climate,  and  in  the 
application  of  its  labor,  from  the  more  favored  land  we  inhabit, 
many  of  the  suggestions,  without  explanation,  would  fall  value- 
less upon  us.  In  the  brief  remarks  which  are  added,  it  is 
hoped  that  the  text  may  lose  none  of  its  interest,  but  impart, 
to  the  full  extent  that  it  does  to  the  Englishman,  its  instruction 
to  the  inquiring  mind  of  the  American. 

BUFFALO,  September,  1853. 


CHRONICLES  OF  A  CLAY  FARM. 


[FIRST  SERIES,]  , 

'    '>  ,  >  i  >  *  ^  ^ 

THE  WASTE. 

MUCH  as  may  be  learnt,  by  a  willing  mind,  from  the 
wisdom  of  others,  the  most  practical,  and  (shame 
upon  us !)  the  most  attractive  lessons  seem  always  to 
be  derived  from  their  failures.  It  is  too  late,  in  the 
natural  history  of  the  "biped  without  feathers  that 
laughs,"  to  stop  and  inquire  into  this  little  item  from 
the  list  of  his  peculiarities ;  so  I  shall  take  it  for 
granted  in  the  most  practical  and  amiable  way  in 
which  it  can  be  at  once  assumed  and  applied ;  and 
like  the  self-devoted  bird,  that  plucks  its  own  breast 
to  feed  the  young  brood,  open  up  my  early  fanning 
blunders  to  the  instructive  gaze  of  those  young  and 
ardent  agriculturists  who  are  just  beginning  to  rec- 
ognize the  last  of  human  Sciences  in  the  first  of 
human  Arts,  and  to  "only  wish,  like  duteous  sons, 
their  parents  were  more  wise.'' 


18  CHRONICLES   OF   A  CLAY  FARM. 

I  shall  not  tell  when  it  was,  nor  where  it  was, 
nor  why  it  was,  that  I  first  "broke  ground:"'  the 
first  would  be  too  cruel,  the  second  too  particular, 
and  the  third  too  personal.  But  I  shall  describe 
my  Farm  geologically,  and  myself  categorically, 
wjiich  must  answer  every  proper  inquiry  of  the 
:  curious,  and  tf/ill,  leave  a  little  untold  besides,  which 
'.sdrvflS;  the  better,  to  keep  alive  the  interest  of  the 
narrative. 

Somewhere  or  other  in  England  there  is  a  flat, 
bleak,  high-lying  district,  which  a  shallow  or  very 
terse  geologist  might  haply  describe  as  part  of  the 
New  Red-sandstone  formation;  but  where,  if  lie  would 
take  the  trouble  to  plow  an  acre,  he  would  hear 
now  and  then  a  suspicious  kind  of  sound  from  the 
share  and  colter,  which  I  may  describe  by  the  word 
"soapy;"  and  where,  whenever  the  nose  of  the  plow 
chanced  to  dive  an  inch  deeper  than  usual,  he  would 
see  certain  blue-looking  indications  turned  up,  that 
would  rather  startle  his  complacency,  if  a  lover  of 
light  soils,  by  a  suggestion  of  the  proximity  of  that 
terrible  antagonist — the  blue  Lias.*  Should  this 

*  "Lias,"  is  the  geological  term  for  various  strata  of 
marl,  shale,  and  other  deposits  below  the  surface.  These 
strata  often  contain  a  conglomerate,  or  mixture  of  shells, 
lime,  alumina,  silox,  and  iron.  The  Blue  Lias,  as  in  the 


THE   WASTE.  19 

discovery  stimulate  further  exploration,  and  his 
plow  be  set  a  couple  of  inches  deeper,  his  ears 
might  presently  be  regaled  with  a  sound  as  of  a 
heavy-laden  cart  dragging  over  a  newly-graveled 
road ;  and  after  turning  up  a  variety  of  conglo- 
merates, as  compacted  as  the  bed  of  an  old  Ro- 
man causeway,  and  as  many-colored  as  Harlequin's 
coat,  the  stress  of  the  pull  would  suddenly  be 
eased,  and  the  plow  be  heard  swimming  whis- 
peringly  through  a  bed  of  wet  sand ;  and  just 
as  the  filler-horse  was  congratulating  himself  that 
it  was  all  plain  sailing  now,  bang  goes  a  trace 
or  a  spreader,  and  the  plow  comes  to  a  stand- 
still, just  revealing,  at  the  share-point,  the  bruised 
side  of  a  quartz-pebble,  as  big  as  a  foot-ball, 
grinning  at  you  from  its  tight  nook  in  the  bed  of 
the  furrow."* 

text,  contains  iron  and  lime,  possessing  the  property  of 
"setting"  under  water.  Scarcely  any  deposit  beneath  the 
surface,  within  range  of  the  plow,  can  be  more  unwelcome 
to  the  farmer  as  affecting  the  permanent  fertility  and  im- 
provement of  his  soil.  It  is  a  favorable  consideration  that 
deposits  of  Lias  are  not  frequent  in  American  soils. —  ED. 

*  A  graphic  description  of  what  many  a  young  farmer  may 
encounter  in  his  first  efforts  at  subduing  a  naturally  forbid- 
ding soil.  Where,  however,  the  elements  composing  it  arc 


20  CHRONICLES    OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

Have  I  described  enough?  or  shall  I  add,  to  this 
subsoil  sketch,  a  faint  and  feeble  idea  of  the  surface, 
some  time  about  the  month  of  February,  (surnamed 
"fill-dyke"  not  without  reason,)  and  endeavor  to 
paint  the  hopeless,  currentless,  resourceless,  and 
pitiable  condition  of  water,  whose  unhappy  fate 
has  fallen,  or  melted,  upon  fields  as  flat  as  a 
billiard  table,  and  without  even  a  "pocket"  to 
run  into  for  escape  or  concealment?  There  it 
would  stand,  day  after  day,  and  week  after  week, 
and  month  after  month,  shining  along  the  serpen- 
tine furrows,  as  if  it  never,  never,  never  would  go 
again !  And  the  only  wonder  was  when  or  how,  or 
by  what  bold  amphibious  being  the  ridges  had 
ever  been  raised,  which  it  intersected,  like  a  sample 
series  of  Dutch  canals  and  embankments. 

geologically  good,  although  lying  incongruously  beneath  the 
surface,  the  unpromising  aspect  of  the  newly-turned  earth 
Bhould  be  no  obstacle  to  his  perseverance.  Some  of  the  most 
productive  farms  within  our  knowledge  have  been  reclaimed 
from  lands,  time  out  of  mind,  considered,  even  by  good 
cultivators,  worthless,  and  eventually  brought  into  cultiva- 
tion through  the  aid  of  a  scientific  analysis  determining 
their  composition,  and  the  application  of  improved  methods 
of  draining,  to  throw  them  into  proper  condition  for  the 
plow. — ED. 


THE  WASTE.  21 

This  was  my  Farm :  250  statute  acres ! 

"  Why  did  you  take  itl" 

I  did  n't.  It  took  me.  That  "  mysterious  lady  " 
who  is  painted  with  a  bandage  on  her  eyes,  (she 
can  see  as  well  as  you  or  I,)  made  it,  with  a  pat 
on  the  back,  my  property,  and  shortly  afterward, 
with  a  slap  in  the  face,  my  "occupation."  It 
had  been  performing  for  a  series  of  years'  a  sort 
of  "geometrical  progression" — downward.  Each 
incoming  tenant  took  it  at  about  half  the  previous 
rent ;  dabbled  about  for  a  year  or  two  like  a  duck, 
and  retired — "lame"  It  was  but  a  simple  equa- 
tion—  a  very  simple  one — to  say  when  the  rent 
would  come  to  zero.  It  looked  on  the  Rental- 
book  like  an  annual  sum  in  Reduction ;  facilis 
descensus  Averni,  literally  translated  into  plain 
English.  What  was  to  be  done  with  it?  This 
brings  me  to  my  proposition  No.  2 :  which  is  in 
fact  what  is  commonly  called  "No.  1" — myself. 
If  there  was  in  the  catalogue  of  human  pursuits, 
one  which  I  hated  and  feared,  dreaded  and  de- 
spised, didn't  know,  and  didn't  wish  to  know — 
it  was  that  strange,  incomprehensible,  infatuated, 
damaging  thing  which,  from  my  cradle  upward, 
I  had  heard  described  and  deprecated  under  the 
almost  forbidden  name  of — Farming.  Dr.  Johnson 


22  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

calls  it  the  delight  of  destiny  to  counterchange 
the  plans  and  purposes  of  man;  but  some  other 
wise  man,  I  think  it  is  Lord  Bacon,  tells  us  to 
"choose  the  life  that  is  most  useful,  and  habit  will 
make  it  the  most  agreeable."  But  accident  seems 
more  potent  than  destiny,  plan,  purpose,  choice, 
or  habit.  On  a  long  sea-voyage,  and  in  a  rather 
dull  and  resourceless  foreign  land,  three  unbidden 
companions  had  stuck  by  me  with  an  almost  per- 
secuting tenacity,  and  attracted  first  my  acquaint- 
ance, then  my  intimacy,  for  sheer  want  of  any  thing 
else :  they  were  books :  to  wit,  Cobbett's  edition 
of  lull's  Works,  and  the  Useful  Knowledge  Society's 
two  volumes  on  British  Husbandry.  I  read  them, 
and  re-read  them ;  and  then  began  again :  for 
nine  mortal  months  I  was  reduced  to  gorge  my 
literary  appetite  upon  these  husks,  as  I  at  first 
regarded  them.  The  Georgics  of  Virgil  had  be- 
gun and  ended  all  my  previous  acquaintance 
with  farming;  they  were  the  sole  associating  tie 
that  connected  me  with  this  sudden  and  enforced 
onslaught  upon  the  "theory  and  practice  of  Agri- 
culture," and  I  returned  to  England — poor  wretch, — 
in  worse  condition  than  I  went — in  fact  given  up 
by  the  "Faculty"  as  a  confirmed — Book-farmer. 
With  this  morbid  predisposition  upon  me — 


THE  WASTE.  23 

imagine  me  exposed  unexpectedly  to  the  fatal 
atmosphere  of  a  sick  room  in  which  lay  a  dying 
man,  as  he  devoutly  believed, —  a  Land-steward  — 
stricken  with  influenza,  caught  upon  my  marsh: 
imagine  the  reports,  the  lectures,  the  death-bed 
warnings  I  had  to  sit  and  listen  to,  about  this 
blessed  farm?  He  described  it  as  you  would  a 
pestilence  ;  a  terror  to  all  around  it ;  it  must  be 
cured  (or  killed?)  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  as 
you  would  treat  a  diseased  ewe,  or  a  truss  of 
mouldy  hay.  It  was  painful,  yet  ludicrous,  to  hear 
him,  for  he  talked  like  a  dying  man  of  a  bad 
child  —  that  would  "be  sure  to  come  to  harm 
some  day  or  other."  What  on  earth  was  to  be 
done  ?  Agriculture  was  not  royal  then  —  there 
was  no  "  Society's  Journal,"  no  motto-laden  buttons 
publishing  the  bans  (for  the  first  time)  of  "PRAC- 
TICE WITH  SCIENCE,"  no  dear  little  weekly  bonne 
louche  of  a  Gazette,  no  July  gathering  of  fat  cattle 
and  great  men  to  look  backward  and  forward  to, 
all  the  other  twelve  months.  All  was  dull,  blank, 
and  cheerless,  not  to  say  "  flat  and  unprofitable." 

What  was  to  be  done?  Apostatize  from  all  the  prom- 
ises and  vows  made  from  my  youth  up,  and  take  it 
in  hand — that  is,  in  a  bailiff's  hand,  which  certain 
foregone  experiences  had  led  me  to  conceive  was  of 


24  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

all  things  in  the  world  the  most  out  of  hand,  (if  that 
may  be  called  so  which  empties  the  hand  and  the 
pocket  too.)  Such  seemed  the  only  alternative.  At 
first  it  was  an  impossibility — then  an  improbability — 
and  then, — as  the  ear  of  bearded  Corn  wins  its  forbid- 
den way  up  the  schoolboy's  sleeve,  and  gains  a  point 
in  advance  by  every  effort  to  stop  or  expel  it,  so  did 
every  determination,  every  reflection  counteract  the 
very  purpose  it  was  summoned  to  oppose,  and,  in 
short,  one  fine  morning  I  almost  jumped  a  yard  back- 
ward at  seeing  —  my  own  name  on  a  wagon!  * 

*  We  have  known  move  than  one  man  sell  out  his  "  home- 
stead," lying  within  a  few  miles  of  a  populous  town  in  the 
eastern  states,  because  there  was  too  much  "swamp"  upon 
it,  and  remove  several  hundred  miles  to  the  west,  where  ho 
must  for  years  combat  the  embarrassments  of  a  new  country, 
to  settle  himself  on  land  intrinsically  worth  far  less,  for 
productive  purposes,  per  acre,  in  its  best  condition,  than  the 
repulsive  swamps  which  he  had  left,  simply  because  he  was 
ignorant  of  the  simple  process  of  draining  them.  Such  men 
were  no  "book  farmers."  They  ignored  all  connection  of 
science  with  agriculture,  by  way  of  agricultural  publications, 
or  the  association  of  themselves  with  agricultural  societies, 
and  consequently  were  profoundly  ignorant  of  the  existence 
of  a  mine  more  valuable  than  California  gold  in  the  hateful 
morasses  which  had  driven  them  away.  Had  they  been 
reading  and  inquiring  men,  they  would  have  converted  such 


THE   WASTE. 


25 


worthless  swamps,  at  a  comparatively  trifling  expense,  into 
soils  of  the  most  productive  character.  The  quiet  vein  of 
satire  running  through  our  author's  remarks  is  strikingly 
illustrative  of  the  popular  errors  which  prevail  among 
ordinary  farmers  in  relation  to  swampy  lands. — ED. 


A  Sketch— introductory. 


II. 

THE  "DEVIL-ON-T/mE'.E'-STICKS." 

THERE  is  an  old  saying  that  "Fools  build  Houses  for 
wise  men  to  live  in" — a  proverb  which,  whether 
applicable  or  not  to  Farms  as  well  as  Houses,  prob- 
ably receives  about  as  fair  an  average  of  direct 
verification  in  the  course  of  each  man's  individual 
experience,  as  any  other  of  those  mysterious  morsels 
of  traditional  truth  which  are  handed  down  from 
each  generation  to  its  successor,  like  faery  money, 
Gold  in  the  giver's,  Dust  in  the  receiver's  hand. 
The  young  experimentalist  in  Brick-and-mortar,  with 
a  shake  of  the  head  not  unworthy  of  the  Elizabethan 
statesman,  (whose  posthumous  fome  has  owed  so 
much  to  that  outward  symptom  of  plethoric  wisdom,) 
admits  the  general  and  antecedent  truth  of  the 
motto  which  might  be  scrolled  up  over  so  many  a 
splendid  doorway ;  he  does  not  doubt  or  deny  it, 
not  he !  It  is  not  to  disprove  its  general,  but  to  parry 


THE  "DEVIL-ON-THKEE -STICKS."  27 

its  particular  application  that  he  purposes ;  it  is  not 
to  invalidate  the  truth  of  the  rule  as  against  man, 
but  to  prove  it  by  an  exception,  in  the  case  of  one 
individual  of  the  species  he  knows  of.  And  the 
clear  rectangular  pencil-work,  and  the  softening 
shades  of  the  brush  of  the  accomplished  artist- 
architect  do  their  work  upon  his  eyes,  like  Yauity 
reflected  in  a  mirror,  as  he  beholds  (on  pasteboard) 
the  "Splendid  Elevation,"  and  then  reads  with 
delight  in  one  corner  of  the  sketch,  beautifully 
printed  in  Indian  ink,  the  "exceedingly  moderate 
Estimate"  Such  is  "the  taper  that  has  lighted 
fools"  each  on  his  solitary  track  out  of  the  beaten 
high-road  of  old  Experience,  leading  them  on  by  the 
marsh-light  hope  of  individual  exemption  from  the 
Common  Lot.  And  old  men  shake  their  heads,  and 
only  smile  at  the  sallies  of  youthful  arrogance  that 
rise  and  break  in  succession  upon  the  shore  of  life, 
and  need  no  reproach  but  that  which  their  own  sure 
ebb  will  bring  with  it. 

And  so  they  felt,  and  so  they  looked  on  me,  in 

the  autumn  of no,  I  dare  not  say  how  long 

ago!  —  when  the  arrival  of  load  after  load  of  Drain- 
ing-tiles  gave  parish  notice  of  the  attempt  to  drain 
what  Antiquity  had  pronounced  undrainable,  since 
the  Deluge. 


28  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

But  why  can't  it  be  drained?  asked  Greenhorns. 

Because  there's  no  fall!  replied  collective 
"Wisdom. 

Has  it  ever  been  tried  with  a  Spirit-level? 

Now  this  was  not  a  fair  question.  Spirit-levels 
(if  they  had  any  meaning  or  existence  at  all)  were 
unintelligible,  mathematical-looking  instruments  of 
purely  professional  nature,  only  seen  (if  ever)  in  the 
hands  of  road-surveyors'  assistants  and  people  of 
that  sort.  They  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
farming.  The  question  was  unfair :  it  contained  an 
ambiguous  term. 

Picture  to  yourself,  however,  the  following  con- 
clusion from  it.  A  bleak,  foggy,  November  day  :  a 
long  rambling  space,  marsh  or  meadow,  as  you 
might  choose  to  call  it,  of  some  twenty  acres  in 
extent,  and  about  the  third  part  of  a  mile  in  length, 
with  a  narrow,  thick  plantation  of  rushes,  sedges, 
and  brook-lime,  and  such  aquatic  vegetation,  thread- 
ing its  way  in  one  long  dank  line  from  end  to 
end,  by  such  fantastic  meanderings,  that  it  looked 
as  if  the  hidden  channel  of  choked  moisture  it 
concealed  had  been  making  a  continued  series 
of  experiments  from  time  out  of  mind  in  search  of 
an  outlet ;  and  after  centuries  of  struggle  and  disap- 
pointment, had  at  length  arrived,  quite  by  accident, 


THE   "  DEVIL-ON-THEEE-STICKS."  29 

at  a  certain  point  at  one  end  of  the  meadow, — 
where  you  might  see  a  pair  of  high  mud  boots 
standing,  or  rather  soaking,  with  a  man  in  them, 
peering  through  a  telescope  on  three  legs,  as  if  he 
was  watching  for  the  total  eclipse  of  a  small  boy 
that  is  to  be  seen — gradually  sinking — about  fifty 
yards  off,  and  clutching  in  his  agony  a  high  staff  by 
his  side,  figured  as  if  for  high  and  low  water-mark. 

Presently  the  Boots  and  the  Telescope,  after  vari- 
ous ineffectual  efforts  and  hearings,  succeed  in 
striking  their  quarters ;  the  boy,  after  sundry  spas- 
modic struggles,  to  correspond,  achieves  the  same 
exploit ;  and  the  same  scene  as  before  occurs  again 
some  fifty  yards  further  on,  and  again,  and  again, 
at  the  same  intervals,  until  they  reach  the  other 
end  of  the  meadow,  and  come  plump  upon  the 
banks  of  a  marshy  Pool  some  six  acres  in  extent. 
On  attaining  this  point,  the  telescope  is  suddenly 
shut  up  with  a  triumphant  snap ;  its  three  legs 
jump  into  one  ;  the  dripping,  shivering  boy  receives 
a  tremendous,  involuntary  thwack  on  the  back,  and 
A  FALL  OF  NINE  FEET  is  declared, — like  a  "Dividend 
of  ten  per  cent,  and  a  Balance  over  to  go  on  with ! " 

Oh  you  primeval  Carp,  Pike,  and  Eels !  You  little 
thought,  on  that  day,  how  deadly  a  fishing-rod, 
marked  and  measured  inch  by  inch-,  threw  its 


30  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FAEM. 

shadow  across  your  ancient  domain ;  little  did  your 
believed  security  dream  of  so  new  a  monster,  the 
angler  upon  three  legs,  that  had  measured  the 
altitude  of  your  downfall,  and  caught  you  all,  if  not 
upon  one,  upon  two  cross  hairs. 

Old  Fish  or  a  JSTew  Farm?  Snipes  or  Swede-tur- 
nips? Which  was  it  to  be?  There  stood  but  this 
question  between  the  will  and  the  way  to  let  the  Dry 
Land  appear.  And  who  knows  what  Saurian  mon- 
strosities of  a  primeval  age  might  be  brought  into 
daylight  when  this  stagnation  of  waters  was  let  loose, 
which  had  dammed  up  the  moisture  of  so  many  broad 
acres  from  time  immemorial?  since,  little  raised  above 
the  high-water-mark  of  this  pool,  lay  the  subsoil  of 
the  whole  farm  beyond  and  around  it ;  and  the  lowest 
point  of  this  meadow  was  the  lowest  point  of  all.* 

*  A  bettor  illustration  could  not  bo  given  of  the  condition 
of  innumerable  tracts  of  low  land  interspersed  throughout  the 
cultivated  districts  of  the  United  States.  They  may  be  found 
containing  from  five,  to  five  hundred  acres,  and  upward, 
and  presenting  to  the  eye  all  degrees  of  barrenness  and  pes- 
tilence, from  the  marsh,  yielding  coarse  grass  and  shrub 
alders,  to  the  bottomless  morass  dotted  with  pools  of  slimy, 
green,  stagnant  waters,  inhabited  by  obscene  reptiles.  So 
that  a  sufficient  fall  can  be  obtained  for  the  passage  of  super- 
abundant water  off  °-  to  a  lower  level,  no  obstacle  need  lie 


THE   "  DEVIL-ON-THREE-STICKS.' 


31 


in  the  way  of  reclaiming  any  extent  of  such  wastes  into  the 
most  desirable  soils  imaginable.  Agricultural  engineering 
was  the  inductive  science  applied  to  this  experiment  of  our 
author;  and  this  is  a  profession  unfortunately  too  little  un- 
derstood and  practiced  by  the  farmer.  When  that  is  made  a 
profession  by  itself  in  this  country,  as  it  in  time  will  be,  wo 
may  expect  a  thorough  exploration,  and  a  consequent  recla- 
mation of  the  unsightly  swamps  which  now  so  often  disfigure 
the  otherwise  agreeable  face  of  some  of  our  best  agricultural 
districts. — ED. 


"  Has  it  ever  been  tried  with  a  Spirit-level  ?  " 


m. 

A  "PRACTICAL"  BEGINNING. 

IT  was  urged  by  Mr.  Brunei,  as  a  justification  t'ni 
more  attention  and  expense  in  the  laying  of  the 
rails  of  the  Great  Western,*  than  had  been  ever 
thought  of  upon  previously  constructed  lines,  that 
all  the  embankments  and  cuttings,  and  earth-works 
and  Stations,  and  Law  and  Parliamentary  ex- 
penses— in  fact,  the  whole  of  the  outlay  encountered 
in  the  formation  of  a  Railway,  had  for  its  main  and 
ultimate  object  a  perfectly  smooth  and  level  line  of 
rail;  that  to  turn  stingy  at  this  point,  just  when 
you  had  arrived  at  the  great  ultimatum  of  the 
whole  proceedings,  viz:  the  Iron  "Wheel-track,  was 
a  sort  of  saving  which  evinced  a  want  of  true 
perception  of  the  great  object  of  all  the  labor  that 
had  preceded  it.  It  may  seem  curious  to  our 

*  Railway  between  London  and  Bristol,  England. — ED. 


A  "PRACTICAL"  BEGINNING.  33 

experiences,  in  these  days,  that  such  a  doctrine  could 
ever  have  needed  to  be  enforced  by  argument ;  yet 
no  one  will  deem  it  wonderful  who  has  personally 
witnessed  the  unaccountable  and  ever  new  difficulty 
of  getting  proper  attention  paid  to  the  leveling  of 
the  bottom  of  a  Drain,  and  the  laying  of  the  tiles 
in  that  continuous  line,  where  one  single  depression 
or  irregularity,  by  collecting  the  water  at  that  spot 
year  after  year,  tends  toward  the  eventual  stoppage 
of  the  whole  drain,  through  two  distinct  causes,  the 
softening  of  the  foundation  underneath  the  sole,  or 
tile  flange,  and  the  deposit  of  soil  inside  the  tile 
from  the  water  collected  at  the  spot,  and  standing 
there  after  the  rest  had  run  oft*.  Every  depression, 
however  slight,  is  constantly  doing  this  mischief  in 
every  drain  where  the  fall  is  but  trifling ;  and  if  to 
the  two  consequences  above  mentioned,  we  may  add 
the  decomposition  of  the  tile  itself  by  the  action  of 
Water  long  stagnant  within  it,  we  may  deduce  that 
every  tile-drain  laid  with  these  imperfections  in  the 
finishing  of  the  bottom,  has  a  tendency  toward 
obliteration,  out  of  all  reasonable  proportion  with 
that  of  a  well-burnt  tile  laid  on  a  perfectly  even  in- 
clination, which,  humanly  speaking,  may  be  called  a 
permanent  thing.  An  open  ditch  cut  by  the  most 

skillful  workman,  in  the  Summer,  affords  the  best 
2* 


34:  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

illustration  of  this  underground  mischief.  Nothing 
can  look  smoother  and  more  even  than  the  bottom, 
until  that  uncompromising  test  of  accurate  levels, 
the  water,  makes  its  appearance  :  all  on  a  sudden 
the  whole  scene  is  changed,  the  eye-accredited  level 
vanishes  as  if  some  earthquake  had  taken  place  : 
here  there  is  a  gravelly  Scour,  along  which  the 
stream  rushes  in  a  thousand  little  angry-looking 
ripples  ;  there  it  hangs  and  looks  as  dull  and  heavy 
as  if  it  had  given  up  running  at  all,  as  a  useless 
waste  of  energy ;  in  another  place  a  few  dead 
leaves  or  sticks,  or  a  morsel  of  soil  broken  from 
the  side,  dams  back  the  water  for  a  considerable 
distance,  occasioning  a  deposit  of  soil  along  the 
whole  reach,  greater  in  proportion  to  the  quantity 
and  the  muddiness  of  the  water  detained.  All 
this  shows  the  paramount  importance  of  perfect 
evenness  in  the  bed  on  which  the  tiles  are  laid. 
The  worst-laid  tile  is  the  measure  of  the  good- 
ness and  permanence  of  the  whole  drain,  just  as 
the  weakest  link  of  a  chain  is  the  measure  of  its 
strength. 

But  this  of  course  was  all  theory,  and  theory  of 
course  was  all  nonsense  :  my  practical  head-drainer 
was  quite  of  a  different  way  of  thinking,  as  his 
modus  operandi  will  exhibit.  The  morning  after 


A  "PRACTICAL"  BEGINNING.  35 

be  had  commenced  operations,  I  found  him  hard  at 
work  cutting  a  drain,  about  eighteen  inches  deep, 
laying  in  the  tiles  one  l>y  one,  and  filling  the  earth 
in  over  them  as  he  went ! 

The  field  I  had  begun  upon  was  very  large,  and 
very  flat ;  and  in  order  to  increase  artificially  the 
fall,  I  had  calculated  so  as  to  make  the  drain 
eighteen  inches  deeper  at  the  mouth  than  at  the 
tail.  I  might  as  well  have  calculated  the  distance 
of  a  telescopic  star. 

"  Pve  leen  a-draining  this  forty  year  and 
more  —  /  ought  to  know  summut  about  it !  " 

Need  I  tell  you  who  said  this?  or  give  you  the 
whole  of  the  colloquy  to  which  it  furnished  the 
epilogue? 

I  had  begun,  something  in  this  way — ""Why,  my 
good  friend  !  what  on  earth  are  you  about  ?  Did  n't 
I  tell  you  to  lay  the  drain  open  from  bottom  to  top, 
and  that  not  a  tile  was  to  be  put  in  till  I  had  seen  it, 
and  tried  the  levels  ? "  &c.,  &c. 

Old  as  Adam  —  old  as  Adam  was  the  whole  dia- 
logue —  it  is  idle  to  go  through  it  —  Conceit  versus 
Prejudice  —  the  ignorance  of  the  young  against  the 
ignorance  of  the  old  —  the  tiling  that  has  been,  and 
will  be,  as  long  as  "  the  sun  and  moon  endureth." 
It  ended  as  I  have  said. 


36  CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY  FARM. 

"  I  've  been  a-draining  this  forty  year  and  more  — 
I  ought  to  know  summut  about  it ! " 

Here  was  a  staggerer.  Among  all  my  -calcula- 
tions to  think  that  I  should  never  have  calculated 
on  this !  I  had  seen  the  commander  of  a  noble 
Bteamer,  with  one  parenthetical-looking  point  of  his 
forefinger,  (caught  in  an  instant  by  the  helmsman,) 
veer  round  a  ship  of  a  thousand  tons  burthen  ;  I 
had  seen  the  mill-owner,  with  half  a  nod  to  his 
foreman,  stop  in  an  instant  the  hurly-burly  of  a 
thousand  wheels  while  he  explained  to  me,  in  com- 
parative quiet,  some  little  matter  of  new  invention 
in  the  carding  of  the  rough  wool,  or  the  rounding 
and  hardening  of  the  finished  Twist.  I  had  seen 
enough  of  the  empire  of  Mind  over  Matter  in  many 
forms  and  shapes,  by  sea  and  land,  to  make  me  the 
devoutest  of  believers  in  modern  miracle.  Under 
the  quiet  seductive  brightness  of  the  midnight  lamp, 
I  had  reveled  in  the  mysteries  of  Number  and  of 
Form ;  and  in  the  working  realities  of  daylight,  I 
had  seen  and  stood  witness  to  the  application  of 
those  apparent  mysteries  to  the  most  beautifully 
simple  processes  in  the  production  of  ordinary  and 
universal  articles  of  human  want.  It  had  furnished 
me  no  new  or  difficult  gratification  to  level  and  cal- 
culate to  an  inch,  the  amount  of  Fall  to  be  obtained 


A  "PRACTICAL"  BEGINNING.  37 

upon  a  field,  which,  without  this  precaution,  might 
indeed  be  called,  as  it  had  been  called,  undrainable  ; 
and  here  I  was,  fairly  planted,  at  the  first  onset. 
Every  inch  of  depth  was  of  real  value  at  the  mouth 
of  so  long  a  line  of  drain.  "Three  feet  deep  at 
the  outlet"  was  the  modest  extent  of  my  demand  ; 
and  there  I  stood,  watching  the  tiles  thrown  in 
pele-mSle  to  a  depth  of  eighteen  inches,  which  I 
was  given  to  understand  was  "  about  two  feet  deep," 
with  as  cool  an  indifference  to  the  other  foot,  as  if 
Two  and  Three  had  been  recently  determined,  by 
the  common  assent  of  mankind,  to  mean  the  same 
thing. 

"But  I  must  have  it  three  feet  deep!" 

"Oh  it's  no  use :  it'll  never  drain  so  deep  as  that 
through  this  here  clay ! " 

"  But  I  tell  you  it  must  be !  There  can  be  no  fall 
without  it." 

"Well,  I've  been  a-clraining  this  forty  year,  and  I 
ought  to  know  summut  about  it." 

From  that  moment  I  date  my  experience  in  the 
trials  and  troubles  of  farming ;  at  that  instant  my 
eyes  began  to  open  to  the  true  meaning  of  those 
"practical  difficulties"  which  the  uninitiated  laugh 
at  because  they  have  never  encountered  them ; 
and  which  the  man  of  science  despises  who  has 


38  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

said  to  steam,  water,  and  machinery,  "do  this," 
and  they  do  it,  but  has  never  known  what  it  is 
to  try  and  guide  out  of  the  old  track,  a  mind 
that  has  run  in  the  same  rut  "this  forty  year  and 
more."  * 

*  Perhaps  the  most  disheartening  obstacle  the  real  im- 
prover of  lands  has  to  encounter  in  all  his  movements,  is  the 
obstinate  prejudice  and  ignorance  of  his  laborers,  a  speci- 
men of  which  is  so  well  narrated  in  this  chapter.  In  fact, 
no  one  should  presume  to  undertake  a  work  of  this  kind, 
unless  he  have  his  mind  thoroughly  made  up  to  override 
every  petty  impediment  that  may  oppose  him,  however 
annoying  they  may  be.  His  only  course  must  bo  to  lay 
out  his  plan  of  operation  intelligibly,  and  persevere  to 
the  end,  regardless  of  the  clamor  of  either  prejudice  or 
ignorance. 

The  "tile  drain"  is  here  adopted  by  our  author.  This 
mode  of  underdraining  has  been  introduced  into  the  United 
States,  within  a  few  years  past,  from  England,  as  the  most 
durable  and  efficient  of  all  other  modes,  excepting  the  open 
drain,  where  the  latter  becomes  necessary  to  carry  off  larger 
bodies  of  water  than  the  tilo  will  admit.  For  the  better 
illustration  of  the  subject  of  draining,  at  large,  with  which 
the  reader  may  not  be  familiar,  (the  author  of  our  volume 
supposing  his  readers  already  so,)  wo  annex  to  the  book  two 
prize  essays  of  the  New  York  State  Agricultural  Society  on 
that  subject,  together  with  cuts  of  the  necessary  tools  to 
perform  the  labor  of  ditching  for  the  tiles,  and  examples 


A  "PRACTICAL"  BEGINNING.  39 

of  vegetation  as  affected  by  draining.  The  essays  alluded 
to  describe  experiments  on  what  are  usually  termed  "  up- 
lands," but  will  give  a  sufficient  insight  into  the  subject  to 
govern  the  operations  of  any  one  who  has  such  labor 
to  do. —  ED. 


IT. 

A  CONVERT,— AND  A  HERETIC. 

WE  have  read — and  a  little  of  ten  er  than  is  pleas- 
ant,—  of  victories  gained  in  the  Field  and  lost  in 
the  Cabinet.  The  civil  war  that  has  waged  so 
long  between  the  partisans  of  the  deep  and  of 
the  shallow  drain  presents  an  experience  the  con- 
verse of  this.  Long  after  peace  had  been  pro- 
claimed— upon  paper  —  and  most  of  the  printed 
authorities  had  begun  to  pull  together  in  favor 
of  the  deep  drain — I  say  most,  for  even  to  this 
day  a  parting  shot  is  now  and  then  heard  for 
the  old  system  ;  —  long  after  the  shallow  advocates 
had  written  themselves  round  to  the  other  side, 
the  battle  was  still  waging  fiercely  out-of-doors. 
Truly  may  the  Draining-tile  be  said  to  have  "  fought 
its  way  downward  inch  by  inch."  The  benefit 
derived  even  from  a  drain  eighteen  or  twenty 
inches  deep  under  the  furrow  which  was  still 


A  CONVERT, AND   A   HERETIC.  41 

retained,  was  so  manifest  and  immediate,  that 
the  very  improvement  itself  prevented  further  im- 
provement. A  man  who  had  shallow-drained  one 
field,  and  found  that  even  this  did  good,  imagined 
himself  furnished  with  a  practical  argument  against 
deep  draining  though  he  had  never  tried  it ;  like 
those  who  condemn  books  they  have  never  read,  on 
the  authority  of  opposite-thinking  Reviews  which 
they  have  read. 

This  was  precisely  the  sort  of  reasoning  that  lay 
fast  and  strong  in  the  skull  of  my  old  master- 
drainer ;  for  master  I  saw  he  was 'determined  to 
be.  The  evidence  of  a  hundred  Spirit-levels  would 
have  been  no  answer  to  "  forty  years'  experience " 
in  draining  and  ditching.  Of  this  I  was  quite 
sure :  so  we  were  at  a  dead  pass.  One  or.  the 
other  must  give  way  "  and  be  forever  fallen."  It 
was  easy  to  wish  him  forty  years'  more  experience  — 
elsewhere — and  "good  morning;"  but  this  would 
be  only  cutting  the  knot,  and  probably  entailing 
another  in  succession.  "Providence  never  interferes 
unless  necessary"  He  was  a  good  workman,  and 
his  authority  over  his  men  not  a  thing  that  it  would 
be  wise  to  shake,  even  had  that  been  possible.  A 
thought  occurred  to  me,  a  very  bold  thought,  all 
things  considered.  I  knew  he  hated  the  sight  of 


42  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

the  Level  —  that  curious-looking  thing  on  three 
sticks  —  worse  than  the  old  gentleman  that  walks 
upon  two.  What  if  I  could  reconcile  these  two 
great  opposing  authorities  by  one  timely  stroke  — 
make  him  Master-of-arts  on  the  spot,  before  the 
eyes  of  all  his  men?  Shorter  and  less  earned 
degrees  have  been  taken  in  the  world.  The  oppor- 
tunity was  irresistible.  I  had  it  brought ;  adjusted 
it ;  and  told  him  to  look  through  it  and  give  me 
his  opinion  of  the  Fall.  If  you  ever  saw  a  dog 
put  his  nose  to  a  wasp's  nest,  you  may  form  some 
idea  of  the  mistrustful  curiosity  and  hesitating 
aversion  with  which  he  brought  his  face  into  close 
contact  with  his  arch-enemy. 

A  long,  indescribable  process  ensued ;  a  most 
determined  effort  to  close  the  left  eye  with  the 
right  hand  —  then  the  right  eye  with  the  left 
hand  —  then  a  dead  stillness,  and  a  long,  fumbling, 
breathless  view  of  the  world  turned  upside  down, 
and  his  men  standing  on  their  heads  for  the  first 
time,  in  spite  of  the  forty  years'  experience  to  the 
contrary :  and  then  — 

"  Well  I  do  n't  know  out  what  you  ^re  right  Sir  : 
the  Fall  does  want  a  leetle  easing  at  the  bottom !  " 

The  success  was  complete.  In  half  an  hour 
every  tile  was  uncovered.  The  men  worked  as 


A   CONVERT, AND   A   HERETIC.  43 

men  work  who  feel  justly  proud  of  their  com- 
mander: he  had  arrived  at  the  highest  summit 
of  his  profession.  He  returned  to  them  with  double 
authority  and  importance ;  and  the  drainage  of 
my  first  field  was  soon  accomplished  :  not  as  deeply, 
indeed — as  we  now  call  deeply;  but  deep  enough, 
after  the  ridges  had  been  twice  cast,  to  allow  Exall 
and  Andrews'  subsoiler  to  follow  the  cross-plowing 
a  year  afterward,  and  break  to  pieces  as  obdurate  a 
hearthpan  as  ever  resisted  the  root  of  an  oak. 

"  After  the  ridges  had  been  twice  cast : "  how 
easy  it  looks  in  print !  What  a  pretty  little  Example- 
farm  would  England  —  and  what  would  not  Ireland 
be, —  if  the  Press  could  thus  cultivate  and  civilize !  — 
if  ploughs  were  printers'  types  and  fields  were  pa- 
per— if  bogs  and  fens  and  marshes  could  be  drained 
like  inkpots,  and  every  drop  that  falls  from  Heaven — 
from  which  there  falls  not  a  drop — NO!  NOT  ONE 
DROP  —  too  much  or  too  little  —  were  apportioned 
to  its  proper  place  and  task.  It  falls  upon  its 
proper  place,  and  under  that  place  lies  its  task, 
would  but  Man  believe  and  act  upon  the  hint,  and 
do  his  part,  his  gloriously  privileged  part,  in  carry- 
ing out,  for  his  own  benefit,  the  purposes  of  perfect 
Wisdom — the  indications  of  an  ever-suggestive 
Handy-work 


44  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

"  After  the  ridges  had  been  twice  cast  !  "  Why, 
those  seven  words  that  lie  so  smooth  on  paper, 
cost  me  three  times  seven  months  of  single-handed 
fighting  against  the  "  Experience  "  of  a  whole 
neighborhood.  I^o  hawk  in  a  rookery  ever  got 
better  beleaguered.  "  One  down  t'other  come  on  !  " 
was  the  one  perpetual  motto  of  the  tongue-task 
that  awaited  me  fresh,  and  fresh,  on  every  side, 
whichever  way  I  turned.  My  own  working-bailiff 
(et  Tu  Brute!}  headed  the  attack  within  the 
camp  —  the  traitor  !  while  a  neighboring  clergyman 
led  on  the  foe  from  without,  evidently  viewing 
the  heresy  in  a  serious  light,  and  myself  as  a  fit 
subject  for  an  auto  da  fe.  The  conclusion  of  our 
last  skirmish  was  too  good  to  be  lost  to  posterity. 
I  entered  it  verbatim  in  my  farm  memoranda. 
Here  it  is. 

"  But  tell  me  in  earnest.  Do  n't  you  mean  to  ridge 
up  that  field  again?" 


"What,  you  mean  to  lay  it  FLAT?" 
"Yes!" 

"In  the  name  of  Goodness!    "Why?" 
"  Because  THE  NAME  OF  GOODNESS  —  made  it  so  !  " 
If  I  had  suddenly  assumed  some  demoniacal  form, 
and  then,  leaving  a  train  of  smoke  and  brimstone, 


A   CONVERT, —  AND   A   HERETIC.  4:5 

vanished,  with  a  clap  of  thunder,  from  before  the 
eyes  of  my  catechist,  I  do  not  think  his  face  would 
have  assumed  a  greater  expression  of  resourceless 
and  complete  astonishment  than  followed  this  extra- 
ordinary announcement  of  the  reason  for  a  farming 
operation.  Vainly  had  I  attempted  to  explain  in 
former  conversations  that  when  a  field  is  effectually 
drained,  the  furrows  are  underground,  three  feet 
deep ;  and  that  one  of  the  great  objects  of  breaking 
the  subsoil  is  to  enable  the  water  to  go  where  it  was 
intended  to  go,  DOWNWARD  ;  that  every  unevenness 
of  the  surface  was  a  source  of  deviation,  and  there- 
fore of  unequal  distribution,  of  that  rich  food  that 
falls  from  Heaven, — Oxygen  and  Hydrogen, — com- 
monly called  WATER  ;  that  on  the  best  land  farmed 
in  the  best  way,  furrows  are  avoided  as  a  nuisance 
and  a  loss,  except  as  a  mark  for  measure-work ;  and 
that  the  object  of  draining  and  subsoiling  was — as 
the  object  of  all  Art  is — to  imitate  NATURE  in  her 
most  perfect  examples. 

The  paradox  of  yesterday  is  the  truism  of  to-day. 
Gas-lamps  light  up  towns,  and  Great-Westerns  cross 
the  Atlantic,  though  Davy  laughed  at  the  one  and 
Lardner  at  the  other.  And  the  principle  of  the  Deep 
drain,  which  ten  years  ago  the  timid  theorist  dared 
not  assert,  for  its  wild  and  visionary  seeming,  is  now 


46  CIIKOJS'ICLKS    OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

the  substance  of  the  "Report  of  a  Committee,"  the 
last  tautology  of  admitted  facts  that  men  endure,  and 
having  consigned  to  the  charnel-house  of  the  Blue 
Books,  inscribe  its  epitaph  in  an  Act  of  Parliament.* 

*  An  important  subject  for  the  farmer  to  understand  is 
the  operation  of  water  beneath  tho  surface.  Clay  soils,  the 
most  of  all  others  benefited  by  draining,  (next  to  springy 
lands,  or  those  covered  by  the  overflowing  water  from  a  more 
elevated  adjacent  surface,)  when  cultivated,  are  usually 
thrown  into  ridges  by  the  plow,  with  corresponding  ditches 
between,  to  carry  off  the  surface-water;  and  owing  to  the 
imperfect  preparation  thus  made,  the  crops  are  unequal  in 
growth  and  product.  This  defect  in  cultivation,  underdrain- 
ing  rectifies.  Another  advantage  is,  that  the  water,  perco- 
lating into  the  soil  below,  and  finding  its  level,  and  a  passage 
out  through  the  tile,  or  drain  of  other  description,  the  surface 
is  left  friable,  and  may  be  plowed  entirely  level.  A  higher 
temperature  is  also  given  to  the  soil,  permitting  it  to  be 
worked  earlier  in  the  season,  together  with  a  better  cultivation 
to  the  crop. — ED. 


V. 

COMBINATION  AND  COMMINUTION. 

THERE  are  some  incidental  points  of  practice  at- 
tendant upon  the  drainage  of  a  field,  which  give 
very  little  uneasiness  to  a  beginner,  but  which, 
like  many  of  the  other  realities  of  life,  gain  force 
with  further  experience.  A  blessed  thing  in  its 
way  is  the  untamed  boldness  of  Youth.  It  gets 
done  many  things  in  this  cautious,  calculating  old 
world,  which,  if  not  done  then,  would  never  be 
done  at  all,  and  which,  whether  useful  for  their 
striking  goodness,  or  useful  for  their  striking  badness, 
afford  equally  profitable  employment  to  that  large 
and  self-respected  portion  of  the  community  whose 
business  and  pleasure  lies  in  contentedly  criticising 
the  errors  that  others  have  made,  in  the  charitable 
spirit  of 

"the  fiend  that  never  spoke  before, 
But  cries  '  I  warned  you,'  when  the  deed  is  o'er." 


4:8  CHKCNICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

One  of  the  points  referred  to,  first  presented  itself 
to  the  notice  of  the  Chronicler,  in  this  wise. 

"A  queer  lot  this,  Sir!" 

"Well  it  is  queer"  replied  I,  as  the  drainer  threw 
out  first  a  lump  of  blue  clay,  then  a  lump  of  red, 
then  a  horrible  spadeful  of  white,  then  a  drip- 
ping mass  of  yellow  sand,  then  a  kind  of  gray, 
gravelly  conglomerate,  that  had  puzzled  the  very 
pickaxe  whose  delicate  style  of  dissection  had  been 
brought  to  bear  upon  it,  then  a  few  spadefuls  of 
beautifully-veined  red  marl,  and  then  broke  into 
a  carboniferous-looking  bed  of  black  peat, —  and 
then — but  let  the  old  drainer  christen  it,  for  my 
heterology  is  exhausted. 

"A  QUEEK  LOT,  this  Sir!  What  shall  I  do 
with  it?" 

I  stood  for  a  moment  melo-dramatically  silent, 
working  up  my  courage  to  a  great  effort.  Out  it 
came  at  last. 

"  Let  it  be  spread  over  the  land  !  " 

He  was  just  raising  his  face  to  look  up  in  mine. 
I  knew  what  was  coming ;  I  caught  one  side  of  his 
mouth  screwing  into  an  agony  of  contortion,  as 
the  idea  loomed  painfully,  by  degrees,  upon  his 
perceptions.  I  waited  for  no  more,  but  turned 
quietly  round,  trying  to  stifle  a  fit  of  inward 


1 
COMBINATION   AND   COMMINUTION.  49 

laughter — not  at  my  own  words,  but  at  the  effect 
I  knew  they  were  producing — and  walked  away. 
I  turned  once  only,  and  saw  him  leaning  on  his 
spade,  and  looking  after  me.  1  can  give  you  his 
soliloquy,  for  it  was  written  upon  his  attitude,  like 
the  lettering  of  a  picture. 

"Well!— If  that  don't  beat  every  thing!" 
A  blessed  thing,  in  its  way,  I  say  again,  is  the 
untamed  boldness  of  youth.  There  was  not  a  full- 
grown  "  practical  farmer "  within  a  ten-mile  circuit 
of  the  spot  where  the  old  drainer  stood  on  that 
day,  wrapt  in  severe  amazement,  who  would  not 
have  thought  it  as  much  as  his  fair  fame  was 
worth  to  give  that  order.  Nothing  but  the  incon- 
ceivable daring  of  pure,  unmitigated  THEORY  would 
have  ventured  its  character  upon  such  a  throw. 
Now  for  the  explanation. 

Upon  all  wet,  thin,  cold  clay  soils,  the  wisdom 
of  antiquity  has  long  established  that  you  are 
only  to  plough  three  or  four  inches  deep  ;  that  you 
are  to  ridge  up  your  lands  into  a  certain  round- 
packed  shape,  from  which  the  rain  may  run  off,  as 
it  would  from  an  umbrella,  or  the  roof  of  a  house ; 
that  you  are  never  to  cross-plough,  or  otherwise 
disturb  this  consecrated  form  into  which  the  earth's 

surface  has  been  once-for-all  moulded,  but  to  keep 
3 


50  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

scratching  it,  up  and  down,  shallow  enough  to 
insure  a  seed-time  by  having  a  dry  surface  two 
inches  deep,  leaving  the  furrow,  and  about  a  yard 
on  each  side  of  it,  as  the  perpetual  channel  or  bed 
for  water  or  ice  in  the  winter,  and  baked  sterility 
in  the  summer ;  that  if  any  body  dares  to  mention 
to  you  any  thing  about  that  mysterious  abomination 
called  THE  SUBSOIL,  you  are  to  screw  up  your  mouth, 
shake  your  head,  and  say, 

"It  won't  do  to  bring  up  that  nasty  stuff!  " 

"But  don't  Gardeners  do  it  sometimes?"  I  one 
day  ventured  to  ask,  with  childlike  simplicity,  in 
reply  to  the  established  doctrine. 

"That's  a  different  thing:  Gardeners  are  n't 'prac- 
tical farmers.' " 

"But  don't  the  roots  of  plants  grow  DOWNWARD 
in  a  Field,  as  well  as  in  a  Garden?" 

I  don't  know  how  it  was,  but  that  provoking 
question  always  brought  the  conversation  to  an 
abrupt  close.  I  never  could  get  beyond  it.  It 
stuck  in  my  own  throat  and  every  body's  else, 
like  Macbeth's  Amen.  Left  alone  at  last  to  my 
own  ignorance,  I  dropped  deeper  and  deeper,  day 
after  day,  into  a  state  of  confirmed  Theory,  and  was 
given  up  by  all  the  Agricultural  Faculty.  I  got 
strange  notions  into  my  head,  that,  as  two  negatives 


COMBINATION   AND    COMMINUTION.  51 

make  an  affirmative,  perhaps  two  bad  soils  might 
make  one  good  one,  and  three  bad  soils,  a  better 
still,  and  four  bad  ones  the  best  of  all!  and  when 
I  saw  the  old  drainer  throwing  out  those  lumps 
of  many-colored  Clay,  and  Sand,  and  Gravel,  and 
Peat,  it  was  really  too  much  for  me.  The  mono- 
mania was  irresistible ;  and  the  old  fellow  must 
have  known  it ;  for  at  the  very  moment  when  the 
paroxysm  was  at  its  height — just  when  the  extrav- 
agant thought  was  flashing  across  me  that  though 
every  body  declared  nem.  con.  that  it  was  bad, 
SOME  ONE  had  pronounced  it  GOOD — just  at  that 
very  moment  of  weak  hallucination,  the  old  Lucifer, 
smacking  his  lips  in  an  odd  way  of  his  own,  looked 
up  temptingly  in  my  face,  with  his  question,  "A 
queer  lot,  Sir!  What  shall  I  do  loitk  it?" 

Blue  and  red,  yellow  and  gray,  white  and  black, 
stiff  and  loose,  gritty  and  waxy,  cohesive  and  re- 
pellent, soft  and  hard  —  there  it  lay  before  my  eyes, 
my  precious  subsoil  in  all  its  Protean  variety  of 
color,  texture,  and  consistency ;  there,  lay  the  ras- 
cally substratum  that  had  pulled  down  strong  men, 
one  after  another,  who  had  tried  to  grow  crops  over 
it,  exposed  at  last  and  brought  to  daylight  like  an 
unearthed  fox ;  there  it  lay,  dripping  away  its 
long  pent-up  moisture  down  the  narrow  channel 


52  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

that  led  to  the  newly-opened  outlet,  through  that 
same  long  meadow  afore-time  celebrated  in  this 
Chronicle ;  reminding  one  of  a  fallen  foe  bleeding 
out  life  and  mischief  at  last  and  forever.  The 
impulse  of  pent-up  theory  was  irresistible.  "Let 
it  be  spread  over  the  land ! " 

And  so  it  was.  And  a  very  curious-looking 
field  it  made  for  the  livelong  Winter  that  ensued. 
Wise  men  came  from  all  the  quarters  of  the  com- 
pass to  look  at  it.  Somfe  of  their  remarks  and 
questions  were  very  flattering.  "Where  had  I 
purchased  my  Winter  top-dressing  f  as  they  should 
like  to  buy  some  at  the  same  shop,  cost  what  it 
might."  "What  winter  crop  was  I  growing  so 
carefully  under  the  variegated  carpet?"  To  all 
which  I  answered  with  becoming  gravity,  and 
modesty  of  my  own  merit.  Some  of  the  remarks 
being  of  a  more  mysterious  character,  I  entered 
in  my  Farm  Journal  for  future  explanation  and 
experience ;  such  for  instance  as  that  of  an  old 
gentleman  who,  shutting  one  eye.  (I  suppose  it  was 
a  habit,)  told  me  with  great  bland  ness  of  manner 
that  I  "  had  put  ray  foot  in  it."  (What  could  he 
mean  ?)  Another  was  so  full  of  general  good  wishes 
that  he  '•'•wished  I  might  get  it"  more  than  once; 
which  I  thought  all  the  more  good-natured  as  he 

o  o 


COMBINATION   AND   COMMINUTION.  53 

did  not  even  stay  to  particularize  what  crop  he 
alluded  to  as  wishing  me  to  get,  or  how  much 
per  acre.  But  of  course  I  civillj  "wished  him  the 
same"  gently  shutting  one  eye,  as  I  saw  it  was  the 
fashion,  and  had  such  a  pleasing  effect ;  at  which, 
being  an  old  friend,  he  performed  the  ceremony  of 
inserting  his  second  finger  between  the  fourth  and 
fifth  rib  of  my  left  side,  and  informed  me,  with  a 
smile,  that  "he  saw  I  understood  chaff,"  to  which, 
innocently  replying  in  the  affirmative,  I  added, 
for  reason,  that  I  had  a  great  demand  for  it  of 
late  among  my  friends,  and  found  it  an  useful 
commodity  in  agriculture.  Such  are  the  dark  and 
recondite  passages  presented  by  my  journal  of 
that  winter,  which  I  offer  for  the  information  and 
guidance  of  all  those  who  may  purpose  trying 
novel  experiments  unsanctioned  by  the  established 
practice  of  their  respective  neighborhoods ;  merely 
observing,  that  there  are  some  things  besides  the 
soil,  on  this  earth,  which  require  a  little  tempering, 
and  pay  well  to  a  man's  peace  of  mind  for  being 
done  quietly  and  neatly,  without  haste  or  heat, — 
yet  smartly  withal. 

Spring  came  at  last:  beautiful  Spring!  that  fills 
the  old  heart  with  youth,  and  softens  down  to  a 
more  genial  and  hopeful  tone  the  frosts  and  snows 


54  CHRONICLES   OP  A   CLAY  FARM. 

that  reign  within,  as  without,  through  dreary  winter. 
Certain  reports  respecting  the  field  which  had  been 
drained,  and  so  curiously  "top-dressed,"  had  from 
time  to  time  altered  the  current  of  opinion  that 
hitherto  run  so  strongly  all  one  way.  The  under- 
wagoner  had  told  somebody  in  strict  confidence 
that  the  snow  had  disappeared  on  that  field  much 
sooner  than  from  any  other.  This  had  been  re- 
peated in  equal  confidence  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
with  the  addition  that  all  the  clay  had  "kicked 
down  to  ashes ; "  but  what  topped  every  thing 
was  that  before  even  Bean-sowing  had  begun,  the 
"motley  close"  was  reported  "as  dry  as  a  bone." 

The  Harrow  is  certainly  not  the  most  ingenious 
or  perfect  of  agricultural  implements ;  but  never 
was  a  more  surprising  feat  performed  by  any,  than 
was  witnessed  one  fine  morning  early  in  March, 
when  it  was  ordered  over  the  field  afore  mentioned ! 
Down  went  the  clay,  sand,  peat,  and  every  thing  else, — 

"  Black  spirits  and  white, 
Blue  spirits  and  gray, 
Mingle,  mingle,  mingle, 
Ye  that  mingle  may  !  " 

And  "  mingle"  in  truth  they  did,  into  as  free  healthy- 
looking  a  soil,  as  fresh  and  as  mellow  as  if  it  had 
never  lain  underground  or  been  out  of  the  sunshine. 


COMBINATION   AND   COMMINUTION.  55 

With  every  turn  of  the  horses,  better  and  better  it 
looked  and  worked.  An  increasing  elasticity  of 
movement  seemed  to  pervade  men,  horses,  harrows, 
soil,  and  even  the  very  atmosphere  of  the  field. 
Before  the  work  was  half  done,  THEORY  and  the 
Chronicle  were  at  a  premium.* 

*  The  cultivator  who  has  "  brought  to,  or  subdued  a  pieco 
of  stubborn  and  hitherto  worthless  soil  into  productive 
condition,  will  sympathize  most  heartily  with  our  author 
in  his  admirably  told  success  in  achieving  his  object.  There 
is  not,  under  the  sun,  an  honester  and  more  useful  victory 
won,  than  that  over  the  unyielding  soil,  in  which  a  worthless 
swamp  is  converted  into  a  smiling  and  productive  field. 
It  is  not  only  the  blotting  out  of  a  deformity,  but  the 
creation  of  a  spot  of  beauty  on  God's  footstool  which  will 
last  forever.  There  is  not  a  word  of  exaggeration  in  the 
description  of  our  author  of  his  reduction  of  so  many  for- 
bidding elements  into  the  best  possible  soil  for  perfect  culti- 
vation, as  we  know  by  similar  experience.  Such  labors  are 
not  only  a  direct  source  of  profit  to  the  proprietor  himself, 
but  the  result  remains  forever  a  source  of  profit  to  his  suc- 
cessors ;  and  having  "  caused  two  blades  of  grass  to  grow 
where  but  one  grew  before,"  ho  becomes  a  public  benefactor. 
Probably  full  one-fourth  of  the  teeming  fields  of  England 
and  Scotland  have  undergone  the  identical  process  described 
in  this  chapter.  The  allusion  to  the  "  Chronicle  "  in  the  last 
line  refers  to  the  "Gardener's  Chronicle  and  Agricultural 
Gazette,"  noticed  in  our  introduction. — ED. 


YL 
"CALX"— AND  EECALCITRATION. 

A  LONG,  long  time — what  a  dreary  time — is  Winter! 
Well  may  all  Christendom  have  lent  its  comfortable 
efforts  through  ages  past,  with  a  long  and  a  strong 
pull  arid  a  pull  altogether,  to  give  a  point  and  a  zest, 
and  a  time  of  almost  legislated  conviviality,  in  the 
Christmas  fireside,  and  good  fellowship,  by  way  of 
indoor  barricade,  a  sort  of  jovial  rebellion,  against 
the  long  despotism  of  Jack  Frost!  It  is  hard  to 
convey  an  adequate  idea  of  the  bounding  pleasure 
with  which  —  after  watching,  month  after  month 
unchanged,  the  rugged,  uncouth  results  of  that  piece 
of  autumn  workmanship  lately  described — I  saw  at 
last  the  wholesome-looking  combination  of  such  a 
heterogeneous  variety  of  earths  that  had  lain  ice- 
bound, as  if  for  perpetual  and  stereotyped  ugliness, 
now  melting  down,  under  the  genial  influences  of 
Spring  and  that  blessed  pair  of  harrows,  into  what 


"CALX" AND   RECALCITBATION.  57 

old  Evelyn  must  have  especially  had  in  his  eye  when 
he  talked  of  "a  roscid  and  fertile  mould." 

"  Easy  work  it  is  to  preach  about  farming  experi- 
ments," thought  I  to  myself,  as  I  wandered  in  the 
gloomy  evenings  of  December  and  January,  among 
the  square  clods  that  lay  exhumed  upon  the  surface 
of  the  field,  with  the  spade-mark  inscribed  in  frozen 
obduracy  upon  their  sides,  like  the  blocks  in  the 
quarries  of  Syracuse  dated  with  the  tool-m'arks  of 
twenty  centuries  ago!  "Easy  work  to  preach  ex- 
periments, that  take  a  year  to  make,  and  another  to 
judge  of,  and  another,  and  perhaps  another  still,  to 
see  the  whole  result  of, —  to  men  whose  '  threescore 
years  and  ten'  were  hardly  a  sufficient  Lease  in 
which  to  scrape  together  a  dozen  facts  beyond  what 
their  fathers  knew !  A  pretty  homily  upon  LEASES 
there  lies  in  these  clods  that  have  been  keeping  sen- 
try here  these  three  months,  while  the  Manufacturer 
has  worn  a  steam-engine  from  new  to  old,  and  the 
Trader  has  turned  over  half  his  capital,  and  briskly 
put  in  a  fresh  stock  of  'Spring  Fashions.'  In  the 
name  of  Common  Sense,  that  useful  'raw  material' 
which  England  has  as  plentiful  as  Coal  and  Iron, — 
what  dead  carcase  has  been  chained  to  this  living 
Art  of  Arts,  to  clog  its  progress  and  to  rot  its  vital 

powers,  by  adding  the  curse  of  INSECURITY  of  TENUKK 
3* 


58  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

to  its  already  arduous  and  time-and -patience-need ing 
problems!  If  it  be  Mind  that  acts  upon  Matter, 
what  is  it  that  acts  upon  Mind?  Surely  MOTIVE 
and  INTEREST,  and  that  ASSURANCE  of  RESULTS,  which 
the  most  ordinary  prudence  demands,  and  the  most 
buoyant  energy  feeds  upon  —  or  dies. 

"  Well  may  a  bold  experiment  startle  minds  which 
have  been  drilled  into  the  habit,  because  into  the 
necessity,  of  contracting  every  prospect,  eveiy  out- 
lay, every  mental  conception,  within  the  compass  of 
an  '  Agreement  for  a  year ! '  If  there  is  an  attribute 
which  more  than  others  marks  the  distinction  of  the 
human  mind,  from  that  of  the  lower  animal  creation, 
it  is  that  it  looks  forward:  if  there  is  an  art  that 
more  than  others  demands  the  powerful  and  pro- 
longed exercise  of  this  faculty,  it  is  agriculture ;  if 
there  is  a  thing  which  adds  force  and  method  and 
precision  to  this  faculty,  it  is  —  Education.  Does 
the  pen  need  to  draw  the  conclusion?  Can  the 
reader  of  'Sermons  in  Stones'  decipher  no  Leases 
in  ClodS)  no  schools  of  instruction  in  '  Calx,  Silex, 
and  Alumen  ? ' ' 

"Winter,  however,  like  Adversity,  has  a  surpris- 
ingly improving  influence  upon things  made  of 

Clay.  As  each  little  thaw  toward  spring-time,  came 
and  went,  the  gradual  process  of  granulation  had 


"CALX" — AND   UECALCITRATION.  59 

broken  down  the  once  wet  and  reeking  spadefuls 
into  the  form  of  dry,  loose  Mole-heaps.  As  the 
tines  of  the  harrow  jumped  and  danced  freely 
through  the  mingling  mass,  what  a  changed  appear- 
ance was  left  behind!  a  dry,  rich,  earthy  scent, 
sweeter  than  the  breath  of  an  Orange-grove,  or  the 
evening  incense  of  the  hay-field,  rose  gratefully  up 
to  meet  the  fresh  morning  beams  that  shot  their 
influence  for  the  first  time  on  the  new  face  of  an  old 
field ;  the  busy  gossamer  drew  its  glittering  net-work 
from  point  to  point  in  a  thousand  geometrical  forms 
over  the  leveled  surface. 

"  Well !  I  never  thought  to  see  it  look  like  this !  I 
should  think  any  thing  would  grow  here ! " 

Such  was  the  remark  I  overheard.  I  suppose  it 
came  from  one  of  the  horses  :  they  were  the  only 
living  things  present  that  were  not  pledged  to  an 
opposite  opinion.  The  observation,  however,  if  ill- 
fitting,  was  not  ill-timed :  it  chimed  in  with  the 
thoughts  that  were  tumbling  over  each  other  in 
theoretical  confusion  through  the  brain  of  the  in- 
curable Chronicler.  What  would  have  been  thought 
of  him  had  he  dared  to  utter  them  aloud,  as  they 
came  and  went  in  this  strange  fashion  — 

"  The  PROTOXIDE  into  the  PEROXIDE  !  ha !  a  beauti- 
ful change  that.  Clay,  Sand,  Peat, —  and  Marl  too ! 


60  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

a  goodly  compound.  How  is  it  that  a  sort  of  instinct 
seems  to  anticipate  the  conclusions  of  Science — that 
the  mind  outstrips  the  page,  and  one's  assent  to 
each  proposition  seems  paid  in  advance,  almost  be- 
fore it  falls  due  ?  Is  Science  intuitive  f  then  why  is 
it  MODERN  ?  Why  have  centuries  upon  centuries  — 
sixty  centuries  —  passed,  and  no  Science  till  NOW  ! 
Why  NOW?  Could  Liebig  answer  that?  I'm  afraid 
even  his  '  Quantitative  Analysis,'  his  grand  discov- 
ery (for  so  it  almost  seems,)  of  the  magic  residing 
in  those  words,  '  JVumero,  Pondere,  et  MensuraJ 
would  be  baffled  to  resolve  that  problem. 

"This  field  for  instance!  they  never  thought  to 
see  it  look  like  this :  now,  could  they  answer  the 
question  —  What  does  it  yet  want? — Yes!  the  in- 
stantaneous reply  would  be  LIME.  '  Why  ? '  inquires 
Theory ;  '  Because  it  would  sweeten  it ' —  would  be 
the  answer.  But  why  ?  Theory  again  asks.  Practice 
is  silent.  What!  silent,  after  sixty  centuries  of 
'  Experience  ! '  Can  nobody  give  us  an  answer  — 
the  truth,  and  the  whole  truth  of  the  operation  of 
Lime  upon  soils?"  The  Chemist  attempts  an 
explanation. 

"  Its  effect  arises  from  its  avidity  for  combination ; 
it  searches  out  free  acids,  as  a  ferret  does  a  rat,  and 
instantly  closes  with  them.  Sulphuric,  phosphoric, 


"CALX" AND   RECALCULATION".  61 

silicic,  nitric,  humic,  and  last  not  least,  the  '  Great 
Dissolver,'  CARBONIC  acid  :  all  these  it  makes  Tcnown, 
by  seizing  upon  them  and  becoming  their  base  ;  thus 
disintegrating  as  it  were,  and  reconstructing  the  ele- 
ments of  the  soil,  and  exciting  to  a  new  action  the 
sluggards  of  Nature  wherever  they  are  lurking.  It 
is  the  Composer  and  the  Decomposer,  for  nature 
cannot  suffer  either  process,  but  fertility  must  fol- 
low :  /^-composition  (growth)  has  begun  ere  ^com- 
position is  over :  does  a  latent  atom  of  organic 
matter  stand  inert  for  one  instant  ?  it  is  at  him,  like 
a  Policeman, — '  Come !  kip  movin ! ' " 

But  is  this  all? — is  this  half? 

"Well  may  the  "Incoming  Tenant"  ask  "How  far 
is  it  to  the  Lime-kiln?"* 

*  It  is  easy  to  perceive  that  our  author  is  no  advocate  of 
short  leases  of  agricultural  lands,  a  perpetual  incubus  upon 
all  permanent  improvement.  This  illustration  of  his  experi- 
ment proves  in  the  strongest  light  the  happy  condition  of  the 
American  farmer,  holding  his  acres  in  fee,  over  the  English 
tenant,  who  occupies  land  on  which  he  is  doomed  to  the 
innual  exactions  of  an  inexorable  lease. 

We  altogether  agree  with  the  homo-thrust  arguments  of 
thia  chapter  in  favor  of  a  high  standard  of  education  as 
necessary.to  an  intelligent  and  successful  farmer.  There  can 
be  no  profession  whatever,  in  which  a  knowledge  of  popular 
chemistry  and  physiology  are  more  necessary  than  in 


62  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

agriculture;  and  he  who  attempts  farming  without  them, 
expecting  to  derive  the  full  advantages  of  his  soil  from  tho 
labor  applied  to  it  by  the  aid  of  experience  alone,  whether  it 
be  of  sixty,  or  six  thousand  years,  will  find  himself  mistaken. 
Aside  from  the  benefit  to  bo  derived  from  the  application  of 
science  to  cultivation,  in  connection  with  ordinary  experience 
and  labor,  which  are  also  indispensable  to  a  just  result,  there 
can  hardly  bo  a  greater  source  of  pleasurable  contemplation 
to  a  thinking  mind  than  is  to  bo  found  in  tho  operations  of 
tho  various  combinations  and  admixtures,  by  which  vegetation 
is  produced,  promoted,  and  perfected  to  its  greatest  possible 
development.  The  beautiful  chemical  illustration  at  the  end 
of  this  chapter  is  in  point. — ED. 


m 

"EARTH  "-STOPPING. 

AMONG  the  various  changes  upon  the  aspect  of  a 
Farm,  necessitated  by  modern  practice,  there  is 
none  which  causes  a  greater  degree  of  consternation 
in  the  immediate  vicinity,  than  the  removal  of  the 
Hedgerows.  There  is  a  kind  of  time-honored  recog- 
nition and  respect  accorded  to  these  huge  "mounds," 
four  or  five  feet  high,  and  broad  in  proportion,  with 
the  running  accompaniment  of  Jungle  sprawling 
at  its  pleasure  into  the  plough-land  alongside,  which 
it  goes  to  the  very  heart  of  the  laborers  themselves 
to  desecrate,  or  reduce  to  the  regulation-standard. 
It  is  all  very  well  under  the  glowing  candle-light, 
with  the  map  of  your  farm  spread  out  before  you, 
and  its  hedgerows  reduced  to  mere  lines  of  sepia 
or  lamp-black,  to  cut  and  carve,  at  your  will,  ten 
or  twelve  large  square  comely-looking  fields  out 
of  thirty  or  forty  unaccountably-shaped  rhomboids 


64:  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

undreamt  of  in  the  hardest  book  of  Euclid,  and 
then  to  go  and  dream  the  realization  of  your  syin 
metrical  example-farm,  the  wonder  and  delight  of 
ardent  agriculturists;  but  what  a  change  comes  over 
the  spirit  of  the  dream,  when  you  mizzle  out  o' doors 
in  the  foggy  ^November  morning,  and  come  to  a 
dead  stand-still  at  the  tangled  side  of* a  fence  (Bless 
me !  why  it  looked  nothing  on  paper  /)  which  has 
furnished  the  talk  of  many  a  Hunt-dinner  for  some 
centuries  past,  for  the  splendid  leaps  and  the  splen- 
did "purls,"  it  has  given  rise  —  or  given  fall — to. 
Its  height — its  enormous  width  —  its  insurmount- 
able, impracticable  look  altogether,  require  an  eye 
quite  as  steady,  and  a  heart  quite  as  firm  as  the 
hunter's,  to  take  it. 

It  seemed  like  sacrilege, — indeed,  I  felt  self- 
convicted,  at  the  first  daring  onslaught  upon  these 
giants  of  the  olden  time.  I  was  obliged  to  "  take 
a  run  at  it"  mentally,  as  it  were,  as  many  a  man 
and  horse  had  before  done  boldly  and  in  the  flesh  ; 
and  stuff  my  ears  against  the  covered  reproaches 
of  the  workmen. 

"Famous  bank  for  rabbits,  this  here,  sir!  I've 
know'd  twenty  couple  killed  in  a  day  out  of  it,  in 
my  time,  when  Squire " 

"Ah!  well  —  never  mind," — quoth  I,  sorely  and 


"  EARTH  "-STOPPING.  65 

interruptingly ;  "but  what's  that  —  what  have  you 
got  there  ? " 

"This,  sir?  Lor'  blesh  ye!  this  is  the  earth 
where  that  ould  vixen  lived  as  gave  you  such  a 
run  last  winter :  I've  know'd  a  litter  o'  seven  whelps 
reared  in  this  hole,  an'' heard  'em  yelping  an'  howl- 
ing o'  the  summer  evenings  as  if  the'  wondered 
when  upon  airth  cub  'untiug  'ould  begin ! " 

This  was  the  climax,  usually.  'No  martyr  ever 
suffered  more  than  I  used  to  carry  home  to  break- 
fast imo  sub  pectore,  by  way  of  travesty  to  'my 
over-night's  imaginative  enjoyment  at  the  paper- 
prospect  of  large  inclosures  and  unimpeded  plough- 
shares. 

But  the  day  of  compensation  came  at  last ;  and 
with  it  came  my  first  discovery  of  the  extraordinary 
sluep-siglitedness  of  spade-and-mattock-wielding  hu- 
manity. Not  till  the  fence  was  clear  away,  bank, 
thorns,  pollards,  ash-trees,  rabbit-holes,  fox-earths, 
and  all,  did  I  hear  the  exclamation  — 

"Well!  this  is  a  wonderful  alteration  to  be  sure; 
why,  I  never  thought  to  see  it  look  in  this  way! 
It's  quite  a  beautiful  field  now!" 

"One  cheer  for  THE  MAP  after  all!"  quoth  I  to 
myself,  as  at  next  candle-light,  down  I  sat  again 
over  the  bird's-eye  view  of  acres  which  I  now 


66  CHRONICLES  OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

began  to  find  were  trodden  by  bipeds  and  quadru- 
peds with  about  equal  perception  of  their  plan  and 
bearing.  Who  would  be  without  an  accurate  Map 
of  his  Farm,  who  once  knew  the  cumulative  tri- 
umphs that  it  brings  of  skill  and  head  craft,  as 
lavishly  accorded  in  the  end,  as  denied  in  the 
outset,  by  the  gregarious  juries  who  sit  in  judg- 
ment on  his  acts? 

Down  went  fence  after  fence!  each  with  precisely 
the  same  prologue  and  epilogue  of  blame  and 
praise :  for  all  the  successful  issues  in  the  world 
never  stop  or  stay  that  rampant,  "inconvertible" 
thing,  criticism ;  that  battery  of  inextinguishable 
pop-guns  that  is  never  silenced  or  taken  by  assault. 
Down  however  went  the  fences  notwithstanding : 
and  certainly,  without  reference  to  any  of  the  more 
subterraneous  improvements,  of  drainage,  cultiva- 
tion or  otherwise,  the  mere  accession  of  business- 
like appearance  to  the  farm  when  denuded  of  its 
miles  of  jungle,  was  what  Dame  Quickly  would 
call  "a  thing  to  thank  God  upon." 

it  would  be  a  difficult  but  an  interesting  task 
to  make  out  a  calculation  of  the  economy  per 
acre,  of  the  riddance  of  these  hideous  and  useless 
strongholds  of  roots,  weeds,  birds,  and  vermin  that 
afflict  the  farms  of  merry  England.  Unproductive 


"EARTH  "-STOPPING.  67 

in  themselves  of  any  thing  that  is  good  —  for  even 
the  timber  they  contain  is  very  rarely  so  —  they 
are  equally  an  obstruction  to  the  plough  that  toils 
for  bread,  and  the  eye  that  wanders  for  beauty. 
Far  be  it  from  the  old  Chronicler  to  depreciate  the 
"tangled  copse,"  or  the  "boundless  contiguity  of 
shade"  that  gilds  the  early  remembrance  of  some, 
and  the  imagination  of  all ;  that  lives  in  the  tasteful 
pages  of  Evelyn  and  Price,  or  in  the  "charming 
bits "  of  Wilson  or  ISTasmyth :  but  where  can  be 
the  pictorial  or  moral  beauty  of  a  great,  crooked, 
artificial  mound  surmounted  by  a  dead  fence  ser- 
rated into  gaps  and  "  raspers,"  or  at  the  best,  hogged 
into  dreary  uniformity  that  cuts  the  blessed  land- 
scape from  the  eye,  by  a  man-made  barrier  of 
stakes  and  " witherings."  "Take  way  the  curtain 
that  I  may  see  the  picture  "  might  any  mortal  say, 
who,  from  his  first  lessons  in  Geography  had  learnt 
that  a  man  six  feet  high  has  a  sort  of  physical 
right  to  a  panoramic  horizon  of  three  miles  on 
this  round  globe  of  ours,  even  in  a  district  like 
mine,  where  not  a  hill  was  to  be  viewed. 

To  be  sure  there  is  one  rather  formidable  con- 
sideration—  the  hedge-pheasant-shooting — "  beating 
the  outsides" — that  pleasant  October  skirmishing 
that  precedes  the  coming  up  of  the  heavy  artillery 


68  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

at  Christmas  ;  but  is  it  not  rather  dearly  retained, 
when  land  is  being  cut  up  for  Railroads  all  around 
us,  at  two  or  three  hundred  pounds  the  acre  and 
scarcely  a  vestige  or  margin  left  to  inclose  for  the 
"  more,  more  "  cry  of  an  increasing  population  ? 

It  is,  at  the  least,  a  consolation  to  think  that  these 
huge  banks  have  no  prescriptive  right  :  that  when 
Dr.  Johnson  told  us  "  God  made  the  Country,"*  he 
did  not  mean  to  deny  that  man  made  the  hedge- 
rows, or  the  conclusion  that  what  he  had  raised 
up,  he  might  pull  down  ;  especially  when  it  is 
discovered,  as  each  may  prove  for  himself,  that 
the  Thorn  grows  much  better,  on  the  level. 

!N"o !  let  the  Park  and  the  Pleasaunce  have  their 
varied  and  picturesque  alternation  of  bush,  and 
tree  and  green-sward — of  broken  masses,  and  wind- 
ing glades,  and  labyrinthine  glens  ;  and  let  the 
Forest  have  its  leafy  screen,  its  deep  and  devious 
mysteries  of  light  and  shade;  but  let  the  field 
of  the  husbandman  have  that  beauty  of  its  own  — 

¥  Is  not  our  author  mistaken  in  ascribing  this  remark  to 
Doctor  Johnson  ?  It  is  a  part  of  a  sentence  of  the  poot 
Cowper :  "God  made  the  country;  man  made  the  town,"  and 
as  the  great  lexicographer  was  a  most  inveterate  as  well  as 
"honest  hater"  of  the  country,  ho  was,  in  all  probability,  not 
the  inventor  of  the  phrase  now  so  often  quoted. — ED. 


"  EAKTH  "-STOPPING.  69 

the  charm  that  Nature  delights  to  throw  over  every 
thing  in  proper  turn  and  place.  The  waving  and 
extensive  Corn-field,  the  deep  rich  verdure  of  the 
green  crop,  the  dark  and  mellow  surface  of  the 
turned-up  soil,  owe  little  of  beauty  to  the  net-work 
of  intersecting  barriers  that  arrest  at  once  the 
plough  and  the  prospect,  and  carry  a  running  nest 
of  robbers,  like  earth-works  of  the  enemy,  through 
the  fair  fields  of  human  skill  and  labor,  and  sacri- 
fice at  once  the  food  of  man  and  the  profit  of  the 
grower. 

It  is  the  eye  of  Prejudice,  not  of  Taste,  that  sees 
Beauty  absent  from  Utility.  Even  in  the  flattest 
districts,  even  upon  the  "Clay  Farm"  itself,  there 
is  an  undulating  outline,  a  morsel  of  the  varied 
profile  of  our  mother  earth  which  never  revealed 
itself  to  the  eye  until  those  impediments  were 
abolished,  which  —  like  Ignorance  —  make  us  mis- 

/  o 

take  for  a  dull,  straight  line,  that  whicli  is  only 
a  part  of  THE  GREAT  CIRCLE.* 

*  It  is  easy  to  perceive  that  our  author  is  a  thorough 
utilitarian,  and  that  the  classical  and  time-honored  associa- 
tions of  English  hedgerows,  with  their  equally  time-endured 
nuisances  of  waste,  vermin,  game,  and  their  attendant  vexa- 
tions to  the  husbandman,  meet  with  little  favor  at  his  hands. 
It  is  surprising  to  an  American,  to  what  extent  the  English 


70  CHRONICLES    OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

carry  their  veneration  of  the  "  prescriptive  rights  "  of  hedges, 
as  well  as  many  other  ancient  rights  and  usages  of  other 
kinds,  relating  to  things,  as  well  as  persons.  In  some  of  the 
counties,  the  hedges  occupy  almost,  or  quite  one  quarter  of 
the  arable  lands  :  a  source  of  perpetual  annoyance  and  incon- 
venience, as  well  as  loss  to  the  proprietors  and  tenants  of  the 
estates,  who  are  as  loyal  in  their  veneration  for  them,  as  for 
church  and  crown  themselves.  Thanks  to  a  more  enlight- 
ened policy,  the  days  of  these  thickly  interlacing  hedges  are 
becoming  numbered.  Thousands  of  miles  of  them  have 
been  grubbed  up  and  thrown  out,  the  fields  obstructed  by 
thoir  presence  made  straight,  and  their  waste  places  become 
smooth.  Our  author,  although  deeply  imbued  with  a  fine 
taste  and  a  love  of  the  beautiful  in  nature,  which,  indeed, 
should  not  be  neglected  in  the  right  place,  treats  the  subject 
like  a  man  of  sense,  and  a  philosopher.  The  hedges  of 
England,  in  a  profitable  view,  are,  in  the  extent  to  which 
they  exist,  a  curse  both  to  tenant  and  proprietor,  in  the 
innumerable  vermin  they  harbor,  in  the  tempation  they  offer 
to  idlers  who  seek  them  in  pursuit  of  game,  and  in  the 
damage  to  their  crops  by  the  depredations  of  all. 

The  idea  of  the  map  of  the  farm  is  valuable.  Every 
farmer  should  have  an  accurate  map  of  his  estate,  in  which 
every  field  with  its  particular  soil  is  laid  down,  the  area 
ascertained,  and  boundaries  denned.  The  convenience  of 
such  a  map  to  one  who  has  once  had  the  benefit  of  it,  will  be 
admitted,  and  its  necessity,  oven,  apparent.  If.  in  such  a  map, 
the  topography  of  the  land  could  bo  shown,  it  would  add  to 
its  valuo.  Many  an  otherwise  listless  hour,  under  shelter  or 
by  the  fireside,  could  bo  spent  in  studying  its  surface,  and  in 


"  EARTH  "-STOPPIXG. 


71 


planning  the  crops  to  bo  made  upon  its  fields.  The  engineer 
consummates  no  project  until  his  map  is  accurately  made; 
the  builder  commences  no  structure  without  his  plan,  with 
all  his  specifications  before  him;  nor  does  the  seaman  under- 
take his  voyage  without  consulting  his  chart,  and  becoming 
familiar  with  his  course  and  soundings;  and  so,  equally, 
should  the  farmer  have  every  acre  of  his  ground,  in  its  posi- 
tion and  topography,  brought  under  his  own  eye,  to  consult 
it  at  any  moment  that  it  may  be  required. — ED. 


' 
'  Down  went  the  Fences,  notwithstanding." 


VIII. 
"TRUTH  AT  THE  BOTTOM  OF  A"— MARL-PIT. 

AMONG  the  legacies  which  the  wisdom  and  labors  of 
antiquity  had  bequeathed  to  the  Clay  Farm  and  its 
cultivators,  one  of  the  most  curious  and  truly  puzzling 
was  a  quantity  of  Marl-pits.  In  every  field  of  five, 
or  six  acres  there  was  a  great  yawning  "Pit,"  deep 
enough  to  drown  the  weathercock  on  a  church  steeple, 
and  wide  enough  to  accommodate  the  church  as  well : 
and  when  the  broad  hedgerows  were  stocked  away, 
(and,  in  good  truth,  my  two  first  winters  made 
strange  havoc  among  those  mounds  of  aggravating 
width  and  crookedness  which  had  separated  field 
from  field,  like  so  many  lines  of  fortification  tin-own 
up  between  hostile  encampments,)  nothing  can  be 
imagined  more  absurd  than  the  effect  of  these  deep 
wounds  disclosed  upon  the  bosom  of  mother  earth, 
and  lying  thick  and  threefold  in  the  fields,  as  now 
enlarged  to  an  average  of  about  twenty  acres  each. 


\ 

I 

"TRUTH  AT  THJ;  BOTTOM  OF  A" — MARL-PIT.     73 

What  on  earth — or  rather  under  the  earth — was  to 
be  done  with  them?  Favored  occupiers  of  the  val- 
leys and  meadow-lands  of  our  Island,  you  hardly 
know  what  I  mean !  Lend  me  your  attention  then  for 
a  moment,  while  I  read  a  short  chapter  from  that 
Geological  Economy  which  experience  and  the  clays 
have  taught  me. 

Among  the  manifold  varieties  which  Mature  offers 
to  the  mind  and  gratitude  of  man,  not  the  least 
beneficent  and  beautiful  is  the  Undulation  of  the 
earth's  surface.  How  little  do  we  value  gifts  and 
blessings  that  are  quite  familiar!  Imagine  for  a 
moment  a  flat  earth  with  no  variety — no  inclination 
of  outline ;  no  hills,  no  dales,  no  uplands  or  meadows, 
no  running  streams  or  rivers,  no  tufted  knolls  or 
winding  dells,  no  "gradients" — but  one  vast  unruf- 
fled surface,  like  the  dead  sea  in  a  dead  calm,  or  the 
Great  Desert  itself:  and  then  imagine  one  thing 
more,  a  thing  which  you  are  in  the  conventional 
habit  of  considering  one  of  the  greatest  agricultural 
blessings — a  free  percolating  subsoil,  underneath 
this  vast  monotony  of  surface,  sucking  down  every 
drop  of  rain  as  it  falls,  and  preserving  not  only  the 
value  of  an  egg-shell  of  liquid  for  man  or  beast  to 
slake  his  thirst  withal.  What  would  you  have  given, 
under  such  a  state  of  things,  for  Two  Hundred  and 


74:  CHRONICLES   OF  A  CLAY  FAEM. 

Fifty  acres  of  CLAY  SUBSOIL?  Would  you  not  have 
regarded  such  a  means  of  retaining  some  of  the 
moisture  given  by  the  clouds,  almost  as  a  special 
providence!*  Too  much  water  —  too  much  ANY 
THING,  however  good — is  always  an  inconvenience : 
but  which  were  best — too  much  or  none  at  all  f  Now 
this  is  precisely  the  thought  that  used  to  ocur  to 
me  (marked  "  private ")  whenever  some  visitatorial, 
geological,  new-and-improved-agricultural  stranger 
bestowed  an  overdose  of  sublime  pity  upon  the 
affliction  of  clay  that  lay  underneath  my  Flat  Farm. 
"  A  pretty  business  you  would  have  made  of  it,"  I 
used  to  think  as  I  heard  them  glorifying  the  merits 
of  a  free  subsoil — "if  you  had  had  the  ordering  of 
it!  Heaven  be  thanked,  a  Wiser  Hand  than  yours 
has  had  the  management  of  these  things,  and  has, 
for  the  most  part,  confined  the  sandy  subsoils  to  the 

*  "Leveled  of   Alps  and   Andes,  without    its  Valleys  and 

Ravines, 
How  dull  the  face  of  earth,  unfeatured  of  both  beauty  and 

utility  i  — 
Praise  God,  creature  of  earth,  for  the  mercies  linked  with 

secresy : 
Praise  God,  his  hosts  on  high,  for  the  mysteries  that  make  all 

joy-" 

[M.  F.  Tupper.     "Proverbial  Philosophy."] 


"TRUTH  AT  THE  BOTTOM  OF  A" — MAKL-PIT.     75 

neighborhood  of  rivers  and  running  streams.  Put 
yourself  on  the  top  of  a  Salisbury  coach,  some  fine, 
hot,  midsummer's  day,  and  take  a  trip  across  the 
Marlborough  downs,  and  then  you  will  see  what  it 
is  to  have  a  thirsty  chalk  subsoil  upon  high  land, 
"  where  no  water  is  : "  and  then  you  will  see  reason 
to  conclude  that  there  may  be  some  problems  even 
more  puzzling  to  deal  with  amid  the  infinite  variety 
of  earth's  surface,  than  a  clay  subsoil. 

As  late  as  the  middle  of  the  Fifteenth  Century, — 
we  are  told  by  an  old  writer*  on  husbandry  mat- 
ters,— "Lime,  even  close  to  the  kiln,  was  dearer 
than  Oats;  "an  odd  comparison,  yet  forcible  too; 
and  as  roads  were  then  not  exactly  wrhat  they  are 
now,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  our  forefathers  had  reason 
good  for  making  the  Marl-pit  do  duty  for  the  Lime- 
kiln.f  The  inorganic  matter  that  was  jogged  away 
from  the  Farm  with  every  bushel  of  wheat  or  pound 
of  butter  or  cheese  that  went  to  market,  did  not 

*  Whittaker,  Hist,  of  Craven,  p.  324. 

t  It  is  somewhat  remarkable  that  Sir  Anthony  Fitzherbert, 
Chief  Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas  (who  tolls  us  ho  was  "  an 
experycnccd  farmer  of  more  than  40  yearcs ")  in  his  "  Boko  of 
Husbandrie,"  published  in  1523,  frequently  mentions  the  em- 
ployment of  Marl,  but  in  his  list  of  Manures,  etc.,  omits  Lime 
altogether. 


76  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FAEM. 

come  back  again  from  the  clouds.  They  soon  found 
out  that.  Human  instinct  and  experience  had  dis- 
covered the  gradual  loss  of  something,  which  neither 
rain  nor  sunshine,  nor  even  the  farm-made  manure, 
deprived  of  these  elements,  could  restore, —  long  be- 
fore Davy  or  Liebig  were  born,  or  Sulphates  and 
Phosphates  had  been  christened  :  and  hence  the 
Marl-pits. 

Curious  and  awkward  relics  of  a  bygone  day  they 
were,  dotted  about  over  my  farm,  and  looking  more 
numerous  and  unmeaning  than  ever,  after  the  en- 
largement of  the  fields,  and  the  straightening  of  the 
few  fences  that  were  left.  Load  after  load  of  clay 
from  the  drains,  and  some  hundred  butts  of  felled 
trees,  and  useless  pollards  from  the  vanished  hedge- 
rows, were  cast  headlong  into  their  voracious  depths : 
but  enough  yet  remained,  and  will  long  remain,  to 
tell  of  the  enormous  labor  that  must  once  have  been 
expended  in  excavating  a  manure  more  costly  in  its 
application  than  the  Guano  which  from  the  far 
islands  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  conveyed  by  sea  and 
land,  thousand  upon  thousand  of  miles,  finds  its  des- 
tination at  last  upon  the  field  of  British  husbandry. 

Well  might  the  farmer  of  the  olden  time  bore  like 
a  "Well-sinker,  at  whatever  amount  of  labor,  for  aught 
in  the  shape  of  a  restorative  or  manure,  when  "  the 


"TKUTH  AT  THE  BOTTOM  OF  A" — MARL-PIT.     77 

difficulty  of  communication  arising  from  the  nearly 
total  want  of  roads  precluded  the  interchange  of 
commodities ;  when  goods  were  carried  on  pack- 
horses,  a  mode  of  conveyance  which  necessarily 
prevented  the  conveyance  of  bulky  articles  to  any 
considerable  distance.  The  price  of  grain  was  thus 
materially  affected,  for  while  some  districts  were 
suffering  from  scarcity,  others  were  overflowing 
with  a  surplus,  and  it  was  enhanced  beyond  its  real 
value  in  one  place,  while  it  sunk  below  it  in  an- 
other :  just  as  at  the  present  day,  in  many  parts  of 
Poland  that  are  distant  from  great  towns,  and  with- 
out water  communication,  the  value  of  the  crops  is 
so  diminished  by  the  expense  or  impracticability  of 
carriage  on  ill-constructed  roads,  that  cultivation  is 
generally  neglected" * 

In  a  word,  cheap  labor  and  dear  carriage  were 
the  tools  that  dug  those  ancient  marl-pits  ;  and  many 
a  long  and  lonely  reverie  upon  the  changes  that  cen- 
turies have  brought  about,  did  they  afford  me, — after 
the  last  workman  had  whistled  his  willing  way  home- 
ward, and  I  stood  upon  their  dark  brink  with  the 
silenced  field  around  me,  and  the  evening  sky  draw- 
ing its  noiseless  curtain  overhead  ;  till  some  peeping, 

*  Introduction  to  British  Agriculture.     U.  K.  S. 


78  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

twinkling  spangle,  reflected  in  the  water  ac  my  feet, 
warned  me  that  the  bright  little  sentinels  of  Heaven 
were  taking  one  by  one  their  watch-posts,  and 
beckoning  me  to  follow  the  example  which  one 
weary  toiler  after  another  had  set,'*  even  to  the 
very  Plow  that  lay  sleeping  in  its  bed  in  the 
half-finished  furrow  at  my  side,  as  if  nothing 
would  ever  move  it  again.  And  then  through 
the  still  night  air,  as  I  moved  tardily  homeward, 
there  would  come  a  sound — a  strange  sound,  which 
the  diggers  of  those  ancient  marl-pits  never  heard 
by  day  or  night.  "Was  it  a  beetle,  or  some  other 
lazy  insect,  homeward  bound,  that  made  that  pe- 
culiar 'hum  which  seemed  to  thrill  through  the 
atmosphere,  far  away  at  first — then  gradually 
nearer,  and  then  louder  and  more  tremulous,  as 
a  slight  gust  of  wind  brushed  by — then  fainter — 

and  fainter  still — and  then gone!     "What  was 

it?  if  the  ear  could  measure  miles,  it  might  seem 
to  have  traversed  some  seven  or  eight,  before  it 
reached  me.  Oh!  ye  who  tilled  these  fields  and 
dug  these  marl-pits  in  the  days  of  narrow  lanes 

*  "  et  jam  nox  humida  ccela  etc." 

"  And  now  humid  night  descends  from  the  sky,  and  the 
sotting  stars  invite  sleep."  Virg.  /Encid,  Lib.  2.  v.  9. 


"TJRUTH  AT  THE  BOTTOM  OF  A" — MAKL-PIT.     79 

and  pack-saddles,  what  would  you  have  said  to 
that  Mail-Train  that  was  flying  like  a  meteor 
through  the  night,  upon  its  track  of  polished  iron, 
pome  seven  or  eight  miles  away ;  annihilating 
DISTANCE,  yet  leaving  SPACE  undiminished ;  turning 
the  wide-spread  country  abodes  of  men  into  one 
vast  Metropolis  of  human  Society,  Mutuality,  and 
Intelligence — not  choked  and  deadened  by  long 
rows  of  brick-and-mortar,  like  the  dull,  changeless, 
man-manufactured  Town,  but  open,  and  free,  and 
independent  as  ever,  with  earth,  and  air,  and  sky 
unpolluted,  undesecrated  by  the  Throng;  yet  man 
united  by  the  closest  intercourse  and  sympathy  with 
the  marts  of  aggregated  skill  and  progress  in  each 
Art  and  Science  that  instructs,  enriches,  or  ennobles.* 
Despise  not  the  Town,  O  man  of  gaiters,  cordu- 
roys, and  short-cut-away,  whose  face  is  stereotyped 
into  perpetual  jollity  by  JSTature's  wholesome  merry 
hand,  whose  talk  is  of  Swedes,  Superphosphate, 
and  Ked  Lammas ;  nor  do  thou  despise  the  coun- 
try, O  frock-coated,  sleek-hatted,  umbrella'd  Town- 
denizen,  whose  face  is  blanched  and  thoughtful, 

*  An  eloquent  tributo  to  the  value  of  railroads  to  agricul- 
ture, which,  unquestionably,  is  as  much  benefited  by  them 
as  any  other  industrial  interest  whatever. — ED. 


80 


CHEONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 


and  mayhap  a  little  •wrinkled,  and  whose  talk 
is  of  Price-current,  Scrip,  Cargoes,  and  Consols. 
For  you  are  each  other's  Customers  and  Brothers : 
the  iron  artery  of  locomotive  traffic,  and  the  electric 
nerve  of  flying  Thought,  has  brought  you  into  a 
new  and  closer  bond  of  reciprocity  and  fellowship  : 
it  matters  little  at  which  end  of  the  wire  your  place 
and  life-task  are  appointed ;  your  hearts  and  heads 
were  cast  in  the  same  human  mould,  and  it  is  hard 
but  such  a  tie  as  now  unites  their  throbs  and 
thoughts,  shall  strike  out  some  results  and  com- 
binations that  you  scarcely  dream  of  yet,  from  the 
twin  realities  of  Agriculture  and  Commerce. 


'  The  bright  little  sentinels  of  Heaven  were  taking  one  by  one  their  watch-posts." 


IX. 

"FALLOWS"— AND  WHAT  FOLLOWS. 

WHEN  the  land  is  drained,  and  the  crooked  ridges 
obliterated  ;  the  useless  fences  stocked  away,  and 
the  few  that  remain  straightened ;  the  Ash-trees 
and  old  pollards  grubbed  up,  together  with  all 
other  timber  that  is  neither  useful  nor  ornamental  •, 
the  awkward  inequalities  of  surface  reduced,  by  the 
spade  as  well  as  the  plow ;  the  Farm-buildings 
improved  a  little,  and  adapted  for  the  better  and 
roomier  accommodation  of  a  better  and  larger 
head  of  stock :  and  last  not  least,  the  House 
rendered  habitable  for  human  beings  "both  male 
and  female" — when  all  this  is  done — and  thanks 
to  increasing  Population,  increasing  Trade,  and 
increasing  Intelligence,  such  things  are  done,  here 
and  there,  now-a-days  ; —  it  will  in  most  cases 
he  found  that  a  considerable  amount  of  Time,  and 
of— something  else  will  have  been  expended.  But 

can  it  in  truth  be  said  that  until  this  be  done,  the 
4* 


82  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

Plow  can  ever  start,  with  a  fair  chance?  Does  any 
one  seriously  believe  that  the  employment  of  his 
farm-laborers  for  a  few  winters,  in  the  execution  (as 
much  as  possible  by  fairly-paid  task-work)  of  these 
preliminaries,  is  a  matter  of  supererogation  or  an 
unprofitable  outlay?  Suppose  it  cost  £10  ($50)  to 
the  acre,  and  including  all,  we  must  prepare  for  such 
an  average,  is  it  so  extravagantly  disproportionate  to 
the  looked-for  return  in  the  shape  of  Interest  for 
Capital  as  to  exceed  the  ordinary  ventures  of  man 
in  other  branches  of  industry?  Is  the  abolition  of 
the  bare  summer  Fallow,  of  the  half  cultivated  and 
therefore  half  productive  Headlands,  of  the  eternal 
labor  of  hedging  and  ditching,  the  depredations  of 
birds  and  vermin,  the  everlasting  turning  of  the 
plow  and  other  implements  of  culture,  with  time- 
losing,  harness-breaking,  and  horse-laming,  to  corre- 
spond ;  the  injurious  shade  and  droppings  of  trees, 
the  stagnating  water,  and  the  barren  furrows, —  is 
the  immunity  I  say,  from  all  these  and  many  other 
evils  recurring  not  once,  but  every  mortal  year,  and 
year  after  year,  to  the  end  of  time, — is  all  this  to  be 
borne,  because  of  the  dreaded  outlay  (and  is  it  a  loss 
of  the  interest?)  of  £10  per  statute  acre?* 

*  A  sufficiently  good  reason  for  grubbing  up  three-fourths 
of  all  the  hedges  in  England. — ED. 


"FALLOWS" — AND  WHAT  FOLLOWS.  83 

The  question  seems  simple  enough  :  yet  after  all  is 
done,  whether  by  Landlord  or  Tenant,  or  by  both  in 
one,  there  is  yet  one  more  question  to  be  asked  be- 
fore the  answer  can  be  prudently  ventured.  I  do 
not  mean  the  question  whether  there  is  a  long  Lease  : 
that  indeed  must  speak  for  itself :  it  is  a  question  if 
possible  more  important  even  than  that.  It  is  a 
practical  question;  let  us  give  it  a  practical  eluci- 
dation. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  expressive  and  meaning  fea- 
tures, rather  than  a  deformity,  of  agriculture,  that  it 
is  full  of  exceptions  and  variations,  and  of  what  men 
call  Disappointments.  However  good  in  their  way 
broad  principles,  and  laid-down  courses  of  cropping 
or  of  treatment  may  be,  experience  soon  teaches  us 
that  not  only  each  soil,  but  to  a  certain  extent  each 
field,  has  its  own  independent  character  and  claim 
upon  the  judgment,  which  will  not  be  wisely  sub- 
mitted to  the  Procrustean  law  of  this  or  that  succes- 
sion of  crops.  Skillful  management  is  at  least 
required  to  coax  a  farm  into  the  designed  and  fore- 
determined  Rotation  of  four-course  or  six-course,  or 
any  other  course  of  husbandry ;  and  to  this  end  it  is 
generally  useful,  and  sometimes  amusing,  to  inquire 
into  the  local  reputation  which  almost  every  field 
will  be  found,  on  inquiry,  to  have  established  for 


84  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FAKM. 

itself.  But  when  two  or  three  or  four  fields  come  to  be 
thrown  into  one,  in  a  district  originally  close-fenced, 
and  where  great  varieties  of  soil  are  met  with,  this 
deference  to  the  archaeology  of  the  land  becomes 
rather  puzzling  to  carry  out. 

Being  bent  upon  the  adoption,  as  far  as  possible, 
of  the  six-course  shift,*  I  had  made  it  one  of  the  oc- 
cupations of  those  valuable  provisions  of  nature, — 
the  long  "Winter  Evenings, — to  cut,  carve,  and  con- 
trive, upon  the  map  of  my  farm,  a  division  of  the 
arable  land  into  six  principal  fields.  The  task  was 
not  a  very  easy  one.  The  inclination  of  the  land 
being  very  slight,  had  to  be  studied  with  the  greater 
care ;  the  fences  that  should  remain  were  not  always 
the  best  or  the  straightest ;  and  that  halfway  house 
of  indecision  (so  well  known  to  all  busy  travelers  on 
the  highway  of  life,)  between  making  a  good  job  at 
once,  on  the  one  side,  and  economy  of  labor  on  the 
other,  occasioned  many  a  halting  hour  of  doubt, 
during  which  Day  and  Night,  Map  and  Land,  alter- 
nately gave  each  other  the  lie,  and  took  it  back 
again,  with  that  quick  reciprocity  and  alternation, 

*  That  is  to  say,  a  succession  of  crops,  as  turnips,  wheat, 
barley,  oats,  grass,  beans,  or  such  other  different  crops  as  will 
best  succeed  each  other,  according  to  the  approved  systems 
of  British  husbandry. — ED. 


"FALLOWS" — AND  WHAT  FOLLOWS.  85 

for  which  halfway  houses,  real  as  well  as  metaphor- 
ical, are  not  uncelebrated  in  fact  and  fiction.  We 
are  told  by  the  oldest  of  profane  historians,  that  it 
was  the  national  practice  of  the  ancient  Persians  to 
think  over  every  important  plan  twice  :  first,  in  the 
morning  when  they  were  sober,  and  again  in  the 
evening  when  they  were — making  speeches  ;  and 
vice  versa:  and  as  decision  and  steady  purpose,  in 
the  field,  when  the  work  is  once  begun,  is  as  useful, 
and  almost  as  necessary,  to  the  Farmer,  as  to  the 
Field-marshal ;  and  as  that  exacting  and  important 
branch  of  the  community — your  neighbors  —  don't 
usually  approve  of  your  doings  until  they  under- 
stand them — or,  in  other  words,  laugh  at  you,  till 
you  begin  (or  might  begin)  to  laugh  at  them ;  it  is 
eminently  advisable,  at  least  I  found  it  so,  to  call  a 
pretty  frequent  meeting  of  that  privy-council  which 
every  man  is  Chairman  of,  who  has  got  Daylight 
and  Eyes,  Candlelight  and  Brains,  a  Farm  and  a 
good  Map  of  it.  And  if.  O  ardent  and  yet  perhaps 
sensitive  Beginner,  you  will  take  one  word  of  advice 
from  an  "  old  file  " — if  you  once  have  come  to  a  de- 
termined vote  and  conclusion,  after  full  deliberation 
with  these  fellow-councilors,  and  after  hearing  all 
tJiey  have  got  to  urge  pro  and  con, —  don't  let  any 
tiling  or  any  body  divert  or  modify  your  plan. 


86  CHRONICLES   OF   A  CLAY   FARM. 

Your  experience  and  mine  will  differ  very  much  if 
you  do  not  find  more  expense,  and  more  regret,  left 
behind  invariably  by  an  under-done  than  by  an 
over-done  job.  "The  first  expense  is  the  least"  in 
agriculture  —  and  in  every  thing  else  perhaps,  with 
the  old  exceptions  of  Law  and  Matrimony. 

The  first  field  which  I  had  drained,  and  to  whose 
chronicled  history  I  must  now  return,  was  a  tolera- 
bly rectangular  result  of  what  had  formerly  been 
two  fields,  and  part  of  a  third ;  and  consisted,  after 
its  enlargement,  of  about  twenty-two  acres.  One 
half  of  this,  that  is  to  say,  one  of  the  fields  as 
previously  fenced,  I  devoted  to  a  crop  of  Swedes 
[turnips. — ED.]  —  the  first  that  ever  had  been  heard 
of  on  the  farm ;  (and  the  last,  in  the  opinion  of  all 
surrounding  "Wisdom,  that  ever  would  be ;)  the  other 
part,  for  reasons  in  which  I  suspect  you  would  have 
acquiesced,  had  you  seen  it,  I  determined  to  indulge 
with  its  old  but  long-forgotten  friend,  a  bare  summer 
fallow,  and  with  a  dose  of  that  same  LIME,  about 
whose  chemical  effects  and  influences  we  had  so 
long  a  soliloquy  some  time  back.  Until  the  end 
of  April  all  went  on  alike  over  the  whole  of  the 
twenty-two  acres.  Plowing,  scuffling,  and  leveling 
were  the  order  of  the  day,  to  the  great  scandal  of 
the  high  ridges  and  their  admirers ;  but  on  the 


"FALLOWS" — AND  WHAT  FOLLOWS.  87 

ponderous  and  august  entry  of  the  clod-crusher,*  (a 
new  monster  in  those  days,)  the  first-mentioned  half 
of  the  field  took  leave  of  the  other,  and  as  each  clod 
yielded  tip  its  individuality  under  the  potent  argu- 
ments of  that  most  persuasive  of  implements,  the 
modern  fallow  went  ahead  of  the  ancient,  and  old 
Jethro  Tull  himself  would  have  envied  me  the  de- 
light of  seeing  the  work  of  comminution  and  perfect 
intermixture  which  its  magic  transit  left  behind  it. 
Never  was  there  such  a  sagacious  or  relentless  old 
tyrant  in  dealing  with  a  clod,  as  this  same  Orosskill, 
for  so  it  shall  be  named,  and  right  deservedly.  If 
he  can't  crush  it  with  his  elephant  foot,  he  takes  it 
up  secundum  artem,  as  •&  mastiff  would  a  bone,  and 
gives  it  a  squeeze  with  his  iron  teeth  ;  and  if  that 
won't  do,  why  then  like  a  bull  he  tosses  it  over,  and 
gores  it  with  the  next  revolution.  Clever  must  be 
the  lump  that,  after  one  or  two  such  embraces, 
escapes  with  its  integrity  less  broken  than  to  the 
exemplar  of  a  handful  of  Walnuts. 

Then  came  a  nameless  implement  of  private  use 
and  manufacture  —  a  mysterious  compound  breed, 
with  a  grubber  for  its  sire,  and  an  iron  hay-rake  for 
its  dam,  to  lift  and  re-expose  the  crushed  and  stifled 

*  Crosskill's  famous  instrument  of  that  name. — ED. 


88  CHRONICLES   OF   A  CLAY  FARM. 

soil ;  and  then  the  large  and  heavy  roller  to  crack 
the  Walnuts  ;  and  then — 

(Even  in  the  most  fertile  districts  the  Grass  crop 
had  been  short  the  previous  summer ;  the  quantity 
of  manure  was  therefore  small,  and  the  quality,  on 
a  farm  that  had  never  borne  a  Turnip — !) 

"Shall  we  begin  the  ridging  up  for  the  Swedes 
to-morrow  ? "  quoth  the  bailiff. 

"Yes,  one-half  of  it;  the  other  half  will  be  ma- 
nured with  guano." 

" With  what,  Sir!" 

I  will  spare  the  reader  the  little  scene  of  utter 
mystification  which  followed  this  announcement ;  the 
subject  would  be  antiquated  now ;  though  many  an 
amusing  tale  might  doubtless  be  told  of  the  first 
introduction  of  that  "magic  compound"  upon  the 
rural  mind.  In  spite  of  smiles,  winks,  murmurings, 
shakes  of  the  foreboding  head,  and  other  demonstra- 
tions, jocular  and  serious,  the  guano  was  at  last  duly 
sown,  on  the  flat,  a  ton  to  five  acres,*  and  ridged 
in  ;  the  other  five  receiving  a  hundred  cartloads  of 
"the  good  old  stuff,"  hauled  (nearly  half  a  mile) 
from  the  farm-yard,  forked  into  the  ridges,  and 
covered  in  by  a  second  ridging,  as  usual. 

*  150  to  250  pounds  to  the  aero,  after  careful  experiment, 
are  found  to  be  sufficient  for  the  thinnest  American  soils. — ED. 


"FALLOWS"— AND  WHAT  FOLLOWS.  89 

"  A  hundred  to  one  upon  the  farm-yard  manure ! " 
of  course, —  or  any  other  amount  of  odds  :  all  bid- 
ders, and  only  one  moonstruck,  misguided  taker. 
It  proved  a  miserable  year  for  Turnips  generally. 
Everywhere  "The  Fly"  was  omnipotent  and  omniv- 
orant :  the  odds  fell  a  little  when  the  highly  backed 
"  farm-yard  "  ridges  had  to  be  sown  a  second  time, 
but  a  crop  came  at  last, — about  the  size  of  apples. 

And  what  on  the  guano  ? 

From  twenty  to  twenty-four  tons,  by  weight,  per 
acre.  Not  "the  best"  but  "the  only"  crop  to  be 
seen  in  the  neighborhood. 

If  people  sometimes  get  less  credit  than  their  due 
in  this  world,  they  muet  not  forget  to  balance  the 
account  with  that  which  they  get  without  deserving. 
The  Penguin  of  the  vast  Pacific  was  the  "Wizard  that 
had  made  this  crop,  not  I :  yet,  had  the  wise  Chief 
Justice  Hale  been  living,  not  all  the  waters  of  the 
Pacific  would  have  saved  me  from  roasting  alive. 

So  much  for  ten  acres  out  of  the  twenty-two,  and 
the  modern  fallow  :  now  for  ancient  practice,  and 
the  other  twelve.* 

*  With  that  beautiful  adaptation  of  things  to  circum- 
stances —  of  means  to  ends  —  by  divine  Providence,  how 
opportunely  has  the  discovery  of  the  vast  guano  deposits  of 
the  islands  of  the  southern  hemisphere  come  forward  to  tho 


90 


CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 


aid  of  science  in  agriculture.  Of  all  the  manures  yet 
applied  to  the  soil,  none  have  been  found  in  which  the 
stimulating  elements  are  so  highly  concentrated  as  guano. 
Nor  is  the  supply  scanty.  Thousands  of  acres  of  the  Pacific 
islands  are  covered  with  it,  and  millions  of  tons  lie  in  readiness 
for  the  hungry  soils  of  distant  countries  to  receive  it.  The 
guano  deposits  will  last  for  centuries. — ED. 


"  The  Wizard  of  the  Pacific." 


X. 

THEORY  AND  PRACTICE. 

THE  comparative  failure  of  that  portion  of  my  first 
Turnip  crop,  which  had  drawn  so  heavily  and  so 
laboriously  upon  the  meager  resources  of  the  farm- 
yard, produced  a  changed  position  of  the  game, 
which  gave  me  some  surprise.  I  found  myself  at 
length  my  own  severest  critic.  Whether  from  the 
continuing  force  of  the  "  good  old  stuff,"  which  had 
laid  the  bets  —  as  heavily  as  the  manure — upon  that 
part  of  the  field,  or  whether  the  fact  of  the  mere 
germination  of  a  turnip-seed  where  it  had  never 
shown  its  delicate  First-leaf  before,  was  triumph 
enough,  it  is  hard  to  say ;  but  somehow  or  other  it 
was  the  fashion  to  semi-dignify  with  the  title  of  a 
"fair  little  crop"  even  those  five  acres  which  so 
wretchedly  disappointed  my  own  expectations.  As 
for  the  crop  where  the  guano  was  sown,  it  went  off 
from  the  first  sub  silentio:  it  was  stared  at  and 


92  CHRONICLES   OF   A  CLAY  FAKM. 

stared  at  again,  as  a  sort  of  conjurer's  trick  which 
"you  couldn't  do  again"  Wise  men  shook  their 
heads  and  held  their  tongues  at  it.  Nobody  would 
hate  been  at  all  surprised  if,  on  going  to  the  field  some 
fine  morning,  he  found  it  altogether  vanished,  like 
faery  money,  as  quickly  as  it  came  :  and  as  the  roots 
swelled  and  swelled  into  confirmed  substance  and 
reality  through  September  and  October,  the  silence 
about  it  became  perfectly  portentous.  Reluctantly 
the  hoers  confessed  that  they  had  not  thinned  it  half 
enough ;  and,  indeed,  the  loss,  from  that  very  com- 
mon cause,  was  considerable.  But  where  did  the 
crop  come  from?  how  did  it  grow?  by  what  means, 
short  of  the  supernatural,  could  a  mere  powder, 
however  highly  scented,  sown  by  the  hand,  produce 
this  great,  fat,  thriving  mass  of  roots  and  leaves? 
Surely  it  must  at  any  rate  be  but  a  fraud  upon  the 
land  after  all ;  and  the  next  crop  would  show  the 
different  results  of  real  manure  and  a  mere  stim- 
ulant. This  was  the  point  to  which  OPINION  at  last 
settled  down.  "We'll  wait  and  see,"  was  the  final 
opinion  expressed  :  and  over  many  and  many  a  farm 
in  England  and  Scotland  men  did  wait,  and  did  see. 
Of  all  the  practical  illustrations  that  ever  appeared 
cotemporaneously  with  the  announcement  of  a  great 
doctrine,  the  introduction  and  use  of  Guano  during 


THEORY  AND   PRACTICE.  93 

the  lifetime  of  Liebig  is  one  of  the  happiest  and 
most  remarkable.  If  some  great  physical  event  had 
testified  to  men's  bodily  senses  the  motion  of  the  Earth 
round  the  Sun,  and  the  steady  centricity  of  that  lu- 
minary, during  the  exact  lifetime  of  Copernicus 
or  Galileo ;  or  if  some  conceivable  reflection  of  the 
earth's  surface  in  the  deep  azure  of  heaven,  had  ex- 
hibited to  man's  wondering  eyes  the  outline  of  the 
great  American  continent  looming  along  its  obverse 
hemisphere,  just  as  Columbus  was  collecting  sub- 
scriptions for  his  first  equipment  in  quest  of  it, — 
they  would  not  each  have  furnished  a  more  triumph- 
ant vindication  of  the  achievements  of  those  master- 
minds, during  their  own  existence  upon  earth,  than 
that  which  the  more  fortunate  Professor  of  Giessen 
has  been  destined  to  witness.  No  sooner  had  the 
persecuting  infidelity  of  man  (the  same  in  every  age) 
begun  to  crucify  his  great  theory  of  THE  NUTRITION 

OF   PLANTS    FROM   THE    ATMOSPHERE,    than    the    US6    of 

Guano  and  of  inorganic  manures  began  to  give  it 
proof.  "Burn -a  plant,  whether  it  be  an  Oak-tree  or 
a  stalk  of  Clover,"  (for  so  the  assertion  of  the  great 
Analyst  may  be  briefly  epitomized,)  "and  the  trifling 
ash  it  leaves  will  show  you  all  it  ever  got  from  the 
soil."  But  the  bulk,  the  weight,  the  great  mass  of 
its  vegetable  structure — where  is  that  gone? 


9  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

"  Into  the  Air : 

And  what  seemed  corporeal  hath  melted 
Like  breath  into  the  wind  !  " 

The  weight,  the  bulk,  the  vegetable  mass,  of  a 
crop,  is  simply,  its  Carbon.  COMBUSTION  just  un- 
does what  GROWTH  did :  and  nothing  more.  It  re- 
combines  the  Carbon  of  the  plant  with  the  Oxygen 
of  the  air,  and  their  union  is  Carbonic-acid  gas:  the 
very  substance  which  the  leaves  of  a  plant  feed  upon 
in  the  air  where  it  is  presented  to  them  in  its  gase-. 
ous  form  in  which  alone  they  can  absorb  it :  they  do 
absorb  it ;  and  in  their  clever  little  laboratory,  they 
pick  out  the  carbon  and  return  the  oxygen ;  just  as 
our  own  lungs  take  up  the  oxygen  and  return  the 
nitrogen.  Multiply  the  two  surfaces  of  an  oak-leaf 
by  the  number  of  leaves  on  the  tree,  and  you  will 
be  able  to  form  some  idea  of  the  enormous  surface, 
which  the  plant  annually  presents  to  the  atmosphere 
to  carry  on  this  work  of  absorption. 

But  the  roots  —  what  is  their  use  then? 

Examine  them  through  a  Microscope,  and  you  will 
see  that,  as  the  Leaves  are  adapted  to  intercourse 
with  AIR,  so  the  roots  are  adapted  to  WATER  :  not 
stagnant  water :  for  the  sponge  rots  which  is  always 
saturated,  and  their  myriad  fibers  are  each  furnished 
at  the  end  with  a  sponge,  capable  of  rapid  expansion 


THEORY   AND   PRACTICE.  95 

and  contraction  —  suited,  therefore,  to  a  medium  in 
which  moisture  should  be  ever  on  the  move,  down- 
ward by  gravitation,  or  upward  by  capillary  attrac- 
tion. This  is  the  true  condition  of  the  soil  demanded 
of  the  mechanical  department  of  husbandry.  "Pul- 
verize your  soil  deeply,"  said  Jethro  Tull,  who  thought 
that  plants  lived  upon  fine  particles  of  mould  :  and 
he  said  rightly,  but  in  so  far  as  he  said  only  half, 
and  thought  that  was  ALL,  he  thought  wrongly.* 

But  not  more  wrongly  than  every  Farmer  thinks 
who  fancies  that  the  bulk  of  his  manure  is  its  valua- 
able  part.  He  rather  hugs  his  enemy  in  this,  as  he 
has  done  in  other  matters.  The  T)ulk  and  weight  of 
Farm-yard  manure  is  simply  the  carbon  which  it 
obtained,  last  year  from  the  Atmosphere;  all  of 
which  must  go  through  a  long  process  of  decay 

*  This  is  a  beautiful,  as  well  as  philosophical  illustration  in 
vegetable  physiology  connected  with  the  growth  of  plants ; 
and  no  man  can  be  an  intelligent  husbandman  who  is  ignorant 
of  the  principles  which  govern  their  structure  and  growth. 
Experience  and  practice,  long  continued,  have  made  many 
"good  farmers,"  as  the  world  has  it;  but  no  man,  let  his 
particular  practice  on  certain  soils  bo  ever  so  good,  can  apply 
the  same  practice  to  different  soils  with  equal  success. 
Therefore  a  degree  of  scientific  knowledge  is  wanting  to 
make  an  equally  good  husbandman  on  the  various  soils  which 
may  be  brought  under  his  supervision. — ED. 


96  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

before  it  will  have  set  free  the  Mineral  and  Ammo 
niacal  parts,  which  together  constitute,  when  dis 
solved  by  water,  the  suction-food  of  roots. 

Liebig  asserts,  that  if  the  roots  are  duly  supplied 
with  these  mineral  and  ammoniacal  substances,  the 
rapid  development  of  the  leaves  will  soon  obtain 
sufficient  carbon  from  the  air.  The  labors  of  the 
Dnng-cart.  as  at  present  carried  on,  even  in  the  most 
improved  districts  awkward  and  uneconomical,  ex- 
hibit, under  more  backward  management,  a  system 
of  elaborate  extravagance  and  loss,  which  the  least 
chemical  acquaintance  with  what  we  are  about, 
would  render  utterly  intolerable.  By  frequent  turn- 
ings in  the  yard,  and  long  exposure  in  the  field, 
every  opportunity  for  the  escape  of  the  Ammonia 
and  every  toil  in  the  lifting,  hauling,  forking,  and 
plowing-in  of  the  carbon  is  lavishly  expended.  And 
all  "free  gratis  for  nothing,"  if  plants  imbibe  little 
carbon  at  that  end.  What  portion  the  roots  do  take 
up,  has  to  be  oxygenated  in  the  leaf  and  decomposed 
again  before  plants  will  reassimilate  it :  a  subsidiary 
faculty  which  bountiful  Nature  has  given  them,  with 
different  degrees  of  necessity  in  making  use  of  it. 

But  it  is  otherwise  in  autumn  and  winter  manur- 
ing. Decay  is  only  slow  combustion:  and  when 
you  are  burying  great  cart-loads  of  carbonaceous 


THEOET  AND   PEACTIOE.  97 

manure  in  the  soil  before  winter,  you  are  making  a 
hot-bed  underground,  which  will  raise  the  tempera- 
ture of  the  soil  throughout  the  long  reign  of  Jack 
Frost,  and  preserve  many  a  tender  seed  that  would 
otherwise  perish :  and  herein  lies  the  chief  and  wise 
application  of  all  carbonaceous  or  bulky  manure. 
Rightly,  then,  so  far  as  their  knowledge  went,  did 
our  forefathers,  who  knew  nothing  of  Turnip  culture, 
plow  in  their  long  manure  before  winter:  a  poor 
practice  at  best,  we  say,  to  put  manure  in  immediate 
contact  with  a  grain  crop,  but  not  more  poor  than 
to  apply  to  a  green  spring-crop,  under  the  burning 
sun  of  June,  the  treasures  of  the  Farm-yard  whose 
spirit  is  exhaled  before  the  body  is  buried,  and  whose 
body  is  not  rotted  time  enough  to  afford  its  remnant 
of  inorganic  food  to  the  crop  it  is  applied  to. 

"Who  can  wonder,  then,  that  the  "artificials" 
should  sometimes  beat  the  long  manure,  for  Spring 
application?  And  who  can  doubt  that  we  wise 
moderns  have  left  half  our  lesson  unlearned,  in 
having  changed  the  time  of  manuring  without 
changing  also  the  condition  of  the  manure?* 

*  Liebig  is  certainly  good  authority  in  many  things ;  but 
oven  he  has  been  found  to  be  mistaken  in  some  of  his  posi- 
tions. His  "ash,"  or  "inorganic"  theory  is  very  well,  and 
true  enough,  so  far  as  the  inorganic  food  of  the  plant  alone 


tfO  CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY  FAEM. 

An  experiment,  whose  object  was  to  test  the 
comparative  merits  of  the  Ancient  and  the  Modern 
Fallow,  seemed  to  some  people  almost  unmeaning. 
The  superiority  of  a  green  crop  over  no  crop  at  all, 
providing  that  the  land  is  dry  enough  in  the  winter 
for  eating  or  carting  it  oif  when  grown,*  was  one  of 
those  public  propositions  that  people  had  run  away 

is  concerned.  But  the  farmer  who  would  burn  his  dungheaps 
for  the  purpose  of  spreading  their  ashes  upon  his  land,  to  save 
the  labor  of  drawing  them  in  bulk  on  to  his  fields,  would  find 
but  a  poor  compensation  for  his  pains.  The  humus,  or  vege- 
table deposit,  contained  in  common  barn-yard  manure,  which 
is  highly  charged  with  carbon,  that  would  escape  into  the 
atmosphere  by  its  decomposition  in  burning,  is  as  necessary 
in  supplying  its  carbon  to  the  roots  of  the  plant  by  the  aid 
of  water,  which  carries  it*to  them  in  solution,  as  the  supply 
of  carbon  obtained  in  the  atmosphere  through  the.  leaves. 
Of  the  carbon  taken  into  the  plant,  about  one-third  of  the 
quantity  is  supposed  to  be  taken  by  the  roots  through  the 
soil ;  the  remaining  two-thirds,  by  the  leaves  from  the  atmos- 
phere. The  rule  of  every  farmer  should  be,  the  more  "  old- 
fashioned  "  dung  he  can  get  on  to  his  land,  the  better ;  not 
forgetting,  however,  the  requisite  supply  of  inorganic  elements 
to  his  soils,  whenever  they  may  be  exhausted. — ED. 

*  Our  author  alludes  to  the  turnip  crop  of  England,  which 
is  little  cultivated  iu  America,  and  probably  never  will  bo  to 
much  extent. — ED. 


THEORY   AND   PRACTICE.  99 

with  in  a  hurry,  and  got  their  fingers  burnt,  and  had 
to  "  drop  it "  like  a  hot  Potato,  before  they  had  had 
time  to  stop  and  look  it  in  the  face. 

Fortunately  I  was  a  beginner  in  the  full  sense  of 
the  word.  Fashionable  opinion  was  no  more  a 
"  child  of  mine  "  than  antiquated  Prejudice.  I  had 
the  same  profound  respect  for  each  and  both ;  that 
sort  of  profound  respect  which  makes  you  take  your 
hat  oif  very  low  and  keep  a  certain  distance  oif. 
]STot  that  I  was  in  love  with  my  own  opinion,  for  I 
had  none  to  be  in  love  with.  My  agricultural  intel- 
lect realized  Locke's  theory  of  the  rasa  tabula.  Bare 
fallows  had  reached  a  respectable  old  age,  if  not  a 
green  one,  in  the  world's  history  ;  I  had  no  personal 
quarrel  of  my  own  against  them ;  the  half  of  the 
field  set  apart  for  the  trial  was  hideously  foul,  and  • 
stiffer  land  than  the  part  under  turnips ;  manure 
was  deficient,  and  spring-time  busy  ;  every  thing 
seemed  to  favor  and  suggest  the  comparison,  so  I 
made  it.  A  dull,  lumbering  piece  of  work  it  is,  too, 
to  spend  the  "long,  long  summer  hours"  in  lazily 
turning  the  "grcate  clottes"  as  old  Fitzherbert  calls 
them,  in  that  quaint  passage  where  he  cautions  his 
brother  farmers  not  to  le  in  too  great  a  hurry  to 
break  them,  a  piece  of  advice  which  every  farmer 
has  told  as  a  new  discovery  of  his  own  touching 


100  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

bare  fallows,  from  the  time,  three  centuries  ago, 
when  Sir  Anthony  Fitzherbert  wrote ;  and  for  three 
more  centuries  before,  perhaps. 

But  it  is  trying  work,  no  doubt,  to  see  the  fields 
around  you  teeming  with  richest  vegetation  —  nature 
all  alive  in  every  direction  with  the  bursting  wealth 
of  present  produce  and  maturity, — and  to  toil  on 
nevertheless  upon  the  bare  and  burning  fallow,  where 
the  very  dews  of  Heaven  refuse  their  evening  tear, 
and  the  morning  ray  darts  in  wide,  vain  search  after 
the  liquid  Brilliant  that  it  finds  on  every  grass- 
blade,  every  leaf,  and  every  flower  throughout  the 
rest  of  Creation.  One  has  heard  of  "knocking  a 
man  into  next  week;"  such  a  misfortune  might 
chance  to  befall  one  inadvertently,  and  on  suitable 
•provocation :  but  to  be  plowing  next  year  for  nine 
months  of  this  one,  and  three  of  the  last,  to  see 
every  thing  overtaking  you  as  it  were  by  a  twelve- 
month,— leaves  growing  more  juicy  and  green,  and 
crops  getting  richer  and  riper,  and  you  and  your 
fallow,  like  a  sort  of  converse  Oasis, — Desert  amid 
the  Green, — still  dragging  behind,  "feeding  the  air, 
promise-cramm'd,"  a  heart-sick  waiter  upon  the  de- 
ferred hope  of  next  year, —  It  is  trying  work  no 
doubt ! 

But  Life  is  full  of  it :  and  especially  of  such  as 


THEORY   AND   PRACTlfcE. 


TO 


this.  What  is  Education  but  a  twenty-years'  fallow, 
heart-wearying  and  self-denying  of  the  pleasures 
that  seem  to  bloom  invitingly  around  us,  luring  the 
warm  spirits  and  fresh  feelings  of  youth,  to  the  easy 
indulgence  of  more  active  enjoyment  and  contact 
with  the  world.  What  is  manhood  but  a  continued 
sphere  of  the  same  self-denial,  another  chapter  in 
the  biography  of  Toil  —  for  a  future  crop — amidst 
the  wistful  temptation  of  surrounding  fruition. 
What  is  Life  itself  but  a  fallow — and  bare  enough 
to  many  a  weary  and  assiduous  toiler  —  a  fallow  for 
the  future  garnering  of  the  joyful  crop  that  was 
sown  in  tears.* 

And  many  such  a  truthful  and  intended  analogy 
does  the  Farmer  read,  albeit  no  metaphysical  scholar, 
in  the  book  of  nature's  symbols.  They  reach  the 

*  The  utility  of  the  "  summer- fallow "  is  still  a  disputed 
point,  particularly  in  America.  The  value  of  land,  the  price 
of  labor,  the  kind  of  soil,  its  liability  to  weeds  —  all  have  to 
do  with  the  question.  That  "fallows"  should  l»e  going  out 
of  date  in  England,  where  land  rents  from  ten  to  twenty-five 
dollars  an  acre  annually,  is  quite  natural.  Wheat  is  the  only 
crop  that  requires  the  fallow.  Yet,  we  are  willing  to  concede 
that  if  the  process  of  plowing,  to  which  our  author  hereafter 
alludes,  can  bo  adopted,  one  great  object  of  the  fallow  —  the 
perfect  comminution  of  the  soil  —  will  be  accomplished. — ED. 


cimotflCLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

eye  of  the  mind  through  that  of  outward  vision, 
without  the  need  of  types  and  words.  "It  is  not 
Speech  nor  Language,  yet  their  voices  are  heard." 
And  shame  upon  the  parent  and  the  country  that 
allows  her  sons  to  be  banished,  at  the  tender  age  of 
childhood,  from  the  school  of  early  instruction  to 
the  labors  of  the  fiold,  before  the  mind  has  received 
that  gentle  care  and  training  which  enlivens,  ex- 
plains, and  even  dignifies  the  lowest  toil,  if  toil  can 
ever  be  really  low,  as  only  Ignorance  imagines.  The 
old  Chronicler,  amid  his  own  early  blunders  and  ex- 
travagance, has  yet  had  no  occasion  to  correct  the 
first  impression  with  which  he  looked  upon  a  child 
turned  into  a  scarecrow  for  the  new-sown  field,  a 
boy  "driving  plow"  the  livelong  day,  and  a  man  (a 
MIND  !)  threshing  in  a  barn !  without  one  hour  for 
the  instruction  and  development  of  that  higher 
part  which  separates  his  mind  from  the  Brutes,  his 
body  from  Machinery! 

Talk  of  "Agricultural  Improvements," — of  the 
difficulty  of  getting  the  laborers  to  take  to  a  new 
implement,  or  adopt  an  improved  Method !  "What 
enables  you  to  see  its  advantage  and  adopt  it? 
Your  mind.  What  cultivates  your  farm  better  than 
your  neighbor's?  Your  mind.  If  that  alone  be  left 
ancultivated  around  you, — at  every  point,  at  every 


THEORY   AND   PRACTICE.  103 

turn,  in  every  field,  in  every  hedge,  in  every  ditch, 
in  your  House,  in  your  Dairy,  in  your  Stable,  in 
your  Barn,  everywhere  and  at  all  times,  by  Day 
and  Night,  in  Winter,  Spring,  Summer  and  Au- 
tumn—  the  neglect  that  has  been  allowed  to  sow 
itself,  the  moral  weed-crop,  will  meet  your  eye  to 
baffle  and  torment  you  with  the  feeling  so  truthfully 
expressed,  when  you  say  you  "have  not  a  single 
mind  you  can  depend  upon ! "  * 

JSTo  wonder :  you  have  never  tried  to  make  one. 

Else,  you  would  not  have  your  lime  overslacked  ; 
as  I  had,  during  an  unavoidable  temporary  absence, 
while  my  twelve  acres  of  bare  fallows  were  in  prog- 
ress. Lime  was  all  I  meant  to  give  them ;  except  a 
thorough  cultivation.  Every  ridge  was  leveled : 
not  an  elevation  or  a  hollow  remained  :  the  subsoil 
that  had  been  exposed  through  the  winter  was  thor- 
oughly intermixed  :  the  plow  and  the  subsoil-plow 

*  When  will  the  American  farmer  learn  that  a  thorough 
agricultural  education,  in  connection  with  a  given  amount 
of  scientific  research,  is  as  necessary  for  the  successful  pur- 
suit of  his  profession,  as  that  of  law,  physic,  or  divinity? 
No  intelligent  man  who  has  ever  practiced  a  single  year  upon 
the  farm,  but  will  be  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  mind,  in 
a  much  greater  degree  than  is  usually  supposed,  to  success- 
fully act  upon  the  huge  mass  of  matter  before  him. — ED. 


104:  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

had  equally  done  their  work;  and  fifteen  quarters 
of  lime  [one  hundred  and  twenty  bushels]  to  the 
acre  was  all  I  added,  before  the  seed  was  sown. 

My  great  object  was  to  see  the  specific  operation 
of  lime  upon  a  worn-out  soil.  If  written  words  may 
be  relied  on,  it  is  the  most  puzzling  substance  the 
farmer  has  to  do  with.  The  chemist  tells  us,  and 
with  truth,  no  doubt,  that  it  has  two  distinct  effects : 
one  upon  vegetable  matter,  which  it  helps  to  decom- 
pose ;  the  other  upon  mineral  matter  which  it  "  cor- 
rects." Such  is  the  word,  and  we  must  use  it  for 
want  of  a  better.  la  the  first  operation  it  is  virtually 
a  "  manure,"  because  it  turns  into  food  for  the  crop 
organic  matter  which  would  else  have  remained 
inert ;  in  the  second  it  is  an  organic  alterative, 
supplying  calcareous  matter,  and  forming  a  base  for 
the  free  acids  exposed  by  the  freshly  moved  subsoil. 

I  had  taken  some  pains  to  ascertain  the  previous 
character  of  the  field.  Fifteen  or  sixteen  bushels  to 
the  acre,  (undrained,  and  in  high  ridge  and  furrow,) 
was  the  utmost  crop  the  memory  of  man  could 
furnish  an  account  of. 

The  crop  of  Wheat  came  up  well,  looked  even 
and  healthy,  but  not  thick,  throughout  the  succeed- 
ing summer,  and  ripened  late.  The  produce,  when 
threshed  out,  was  six-and-thirty  bushels,  including 


THEORY   AND   PKACTICE.  105 

rather  more  than  half  a  bushel  of  "Tail,"  to  the 
acre. 

How  completely  the  Lime  had  done  its  work,  in 
both  capacities,  may  be  judged  of  from  the  fact  that 
on  a  couple  of  acres  which  I  retained  expressly  for 
the  after  experiment,  and  sowed  with  Beans  and 
then  with  Oats,  unmanured,  the  two  succeeding 
years,  the  return  exhibited  an  utter  exhaustion  of 
the  productive  powers  of  the  soil,  to  an  extent  that 
I  could  hardly  have  believed,  without  experimental 
proof. 

Though  it  cannot  be  desirable  to  see  the  practice 
of  bare  fallows  extended ;  for  it  exists  too  much 
already  upon  many  soils  where  it  might  be  with 
every  advantage  substituted  by  green-crops ;  it  must 
yet  be  borne  in  mind  that  it  is  not  in  the  mechanical 
structure  alone  that  heavy  soils  differ  from  light 
soils ;  their  chemical  difference^  which  is  quite  as 
great,  lies  in  that  essential  particular  that  the  clay 
soil  is  naturally  richer  in  the  mineral  constituents 
required  by  your  crops.  Potash,  Soda,  and  Phos- 
phorus, which  you  must  supply  to  a  light  soil  before 
you  sow  it,  you  have  only  to  develop  in  a  clay  soil 
by  deep  and  frequent  stirring,  and  submitting  to  the 
oxidation  of  the  atmosphere.  The  green-crop,  with 

its   carbon-obtaining  leaves,  will   no  doubt  supply 
5* 


106  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

organic  wealth  to  either ;  but  inorganic  food  can 
come  from  the  soil  alone ;  and  if  the  soil  be  able  to 
supply  it  from  its  own  resources,  one-half  the  value 
of  the  green-crop,  as  a  fertilizer,  is  renounced.  Its 
remaining  value,  as  a  collector  of  organic  matter 
from  the  atmosphere,  is  the  point  upon  which  the 
question  will  be  poised,  of  its  adoption  on  a  soil 
which  after  effectual  drainage,  sub-pulverization,  and 
liming,  still  retains  the  character  of  a  "  clay."  Even 
upon  such  land,  (which  is  not  so  plentiful  as  some 
imagine,)  experience  has  yet  to  prove  how  far,  by 
deep  plowing  and  sub-soiling  immediately  after 
harvest,  and  making  the  most  of  suitable  weather 
between  that  time  and  the  following  summer,  the 
useful  Swede  or  Turnip  may  take  its  place  in  a  six- 
course  system  as  profitably  as  in  the  four-course 
system  upon  lighter  soils.  The  bare  fallow  is  too 
ancient,  too  prospectively  laborious,  and  patient  not 
to  have  deep  reason  at  the  bottom  of  it.  Chemistry 
has  discovered  the  truth  which  Practice  has  attested. 
The  question  may  be,  not  whether  the  fallow  shall 
be  abandoned,  but  whether  its  objects  can  be 
achieved  at  a  less  sacrifice  of  Time. 


XL 

DISSOLVING  VIEWS. 

IN  these  busy  days  of  Land-navigation,  when  a  man 
can  hardly  travel  twenty  miles  along  the  old-fash- 
ioned high  road  leading  from  any  where  to  any 
where  else,  without  rumbling  under  the  skew  arch, 
or  half  dislocating  his  mortal  framework  over  the 
temporary  bridge^  of  a  "  Railway  in  progress,"  as 
Mr.  Bradshaw,  with  monthly  mockery  and  perti- 
nacity of  promise,  calls  it,  most  people  may  have 
had  opportunities  of  noticing  certain  funnel-shaped 
pyramids  of  earth  left  standing  in  the  "  cuttings," 
which,  if  not  exactly  like  their  prototypes, — 

"  Flinging  their  shadows  from  on  high, 
For  time  to  count  his  ages  by," 

yet  answer  very  satisfactorily  the  more  modern  ob- 
ject of  showing  what  deep  wrinkles  the  face  of 
mother  earth  may  receive  in  short  chronologies,  and 
what  geological  liberties  people  take  with  her  in 
her  old  age  to  what  they  used  to  do  ;  inverting 
her  established  strata,  shoveling  Lias,  Chalk,  and 


108  CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY   FARM. 

Red-sandstone  over  each  other  in  the  most  admired 
disorder,  leaving  only  these  frail  memorials  standing 
as  if  by  way  of  a  small  sample  of  "  England  before 
the  Conquest "  of  spade  and  wheelbarrow. 

"When  looking  over  the  changed  aspect  of  a  twenty 
acre  field,  with  its  drained,  deepened,  leveled,  ma- 
nured, turniped,  barleyed  soil,  smoothly  smiling 
under  the  sunshine  in  its  first  year's  Clover,  how 
often  I  have  wished  that  some  such  relic  of  its  orig- 
inal state  could  have  survived,  to  present  to  the 
imaginative  eye  that  now  sees  it  for  the  first  time, 
the  long  story  — 

"  Eheu  !  quantus  equis,  quantus  erat  sudor, 
Viris  !  " * 

and  furnish  a  reply  of  befitting  smartness  to  the 
cold-blooded  cruelty  of  look  and  phrase  that  extin- 
guishes all  your  prideful  thoughts  by  some  such 
damning  phrase  as  this  : — "Well !  a  very  nice  field  ; 
very  beautiful  field,  indeed!  very  nice,  but  a — I 
don't  see  any  thing  particular,  not  very  particular 
at  least,  in  it.  I'm  no  farmer,  you  know  ;  you'll  ex- 
cuse me,"  &c. — "Excuse  you  !  Why,  what  upon  earth 
did  you  come  out  to  see?"  I  long  to  ask  of  each 
gaping  sight-seeker,  who  seems  to  have  expected 

*  "  Alas  !  how  much  of  toil  of  man  and  boast 
Has  all  this  cost !  " 


DISSOLVING  VIEWS.  109 

a  series  of  dissolving  views,  or  some  dioramic 
transparency  exhibiting  Drains  running,  Sub-soil 
crumbling,  Ammonia  fixing,  Turnips  growing,  Sheep 
fattening,  Wheat  reaping,  and  all  the  phenomena 
that  "trammel  up  the  consequence"  of  agricultural 
emprise,  much  after  the  fashion  of  the  nursery  tale 
that  finds  such  rapid  denouement  when  "the  cat 
began  to  eat  the  mouse." 

Beautiful  in  every  best  sense  of  the  word  as  an 
improved  and  well-cultivated  farm  may  be,  how 
bashfully  does  it  reveal  to  any  but  the  deserving 
eye,  the  eye  that  has  rightfully  and  laboriously 
earned  its  perceptive  skill,  the  developed  capability 
and  power  obtained  by  the  soil  from  the  judicious 
appliances  of  art.  The  Painter  may  draw  a  Land- 
scape, the  Florist  may  furnish  a  Hothouse,  the 
Landscape-gardener  may  produce  an  "effect"  with 
compendious  skill ;  but  there  are  two  things  in  na- 
ture bearing  truthful  analogy  with  each  other,  from 
the  world  of  matter  to  that  of  mind,  which  defy  the 
hand  of  imitation  ;  both  are  comprehended  by  the 
one  same  word,  CULTIVATION.  It  carries  no  label  on 
its  back,  no  title-page  or  illustration  to  the  idle  spec- 
ulation of  the  eye ;  it  is  no  talker ;  it  asks  "  an  un- 
derstanding, but  no  tongue;"  full  as  Nature  is  of 
ornament  at  every  stage,  she  disdains  to  make  an 


110  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FAKH. 

exhibition  of  her  intrinsic  progress  at  any.  The 
railroad  workman  leaves  a  pyramid  to  mark  the 
ancient  outline  of  the  surface ;  and  it  is  wise  in 
him,  for  he  has  a  motive  in  the  retrospective  meas- 
urement. But  with  nature  it  is  not  so:  ONWARD  is 
the  eternal  word  ;  and  the  memory  how  this  meadow 
looked  when  it  was  that  morass,  or  this  fair  field 
when  it  was  that  jungle  of  high  hedges,  stunted  ash- 
trees,  tangled  bushes,  with  docks  and  thistles  to 
correspond, —  to  say  nothing  of  heaved-up  ridges, 
and  crooked  furrows, —  all  is  past ;  and  he  who  looks 
on  it  as  it  is,  might  as  well  ask  leafy  Summer  to  show 
him  how  Winter  looks  on  the  same  spot,  as  expect 
the  improved  field  to  show  him  the  history  of  its 
improvement.  "  Oh !  Sir,  if  you  had  but  seen  this 
field  as  I  remember  it!"  has  been  the  half-mortified 
exclamation  or  remonstrance  of  many  a  worthy 
toiler  upon  earth's  surface,  whose  handy-work  has 
left  no  landmarks  except  upon  his  own  brow.  "If 
you  had  but  seen  it  as  it  was  /  " — and  there  the  in- 
terjectional  sentence  ends  unfinished  :  would  it  be 
far  from  the  truth — a  truth  that  will  be  one  day 
better  understood — to  continue  it  thus: 

— "You  would  give  honor  to  the  toiler  and  the 
toil  that  are  employed  in  carrying  out  the  benefi- 
cent designs  of  Providence  for  man,  in  subduing, 


DISSOLVING  'VIEWS. 


Ill 


fertilizing,  and  beautifying  the  spot  of  earth  on  which 
his  lot  is  cast.  You  would  ask  why  for  thousands  of 
years  we  have  crowned  the  Warrior  with  Laurels, 
the  Poet  with  ivy,  the  Citizen  with  Mural  emblems, 
and  the  Husbandman  with  nothing.  You  would  ask 
why  his  achievements  are  without  record  and  his 
name  without  honor ;  and  his  only  reward  that 
which  is  to  be  found  in  the  words  of  the  stern  sat- 
irist ;  * — " Laudatur,  et  alget !  "  f 

Our  author  has  an  appreciation  of  the  honors  which  should 
belong  to  one  branch  of  public  benefactors,  which  may  at  a 
future  day  be  acknowledged. — Ed. 

"f"  For  virtue  starves  on  universal  praise. 

[Juv.  Sat.  i.  v.  74— Gifford's  Trans. 


'  Elieu  !  quantus  equjs,  quantus  crat  sudor 
Viris  ! " 


XII. 
A  WORD  AT  PARTING. 

MUEKY  days  of  November  ye  have  come — and  gone 
again, —  over  one  at  least  who  has  found  out  and 
tasted  of  your  Poetry  :  and  in  turning  over  the 
leaves  of  a  crowded  diary  of  years  and  days  gone 
by,  his  hand  can  scarce  touch  without  the  gentle 
pressure  of  old  fellowship  the  page  after  page  that 
recounts  tbe  active  busy-ness  which  lighted  up  even 
your  dark  atmosphere  and  drizzling  skies ;  till  the 
spent  and  scanty  day  again  and  again  drove  him, 
reluctant,  to  the  "beD,  book,  and  candle,"  from 
which  the  mind  would  wander  back  a-field,  over 
every  yard  of  nicely  leveled  drain ;  and  hear,  in 
fancy,  the  drip,  drip,  drip,  going  on  through  the 
silent  night,  while  wearied  laborers  sleep,  and  Na- 
ture, the  unwearied  laborer,  STILL  WOEKS  alone. . 

"What  a  thought — to  the  mind  that  knows  its  his- 
tory and  value — ay!  he  may  be  bold  enough  to  say 


A  WOKD   AT   PARTING.  113 

who  has  known  and  felt  it  —  what  a  blessed  thought 
is  a  well-drained  Field!  A  portion,  a  small  yet 
measurable  portion  of  Nature's  reality,  brought  by 
the  hand  of  man  from  sterility  to  fruitfulness  —  from 
its  first  and  incomplete  existence  to  its  intended  and 
developed  state.  What  a  thought  to  cheer  and 
lighten  the  dull  November  fog  —  that  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  acres  in  this  moist  England  of  ours 
which  once  began  their  annual  saturation  with  the 
Autumn  rains,  and  lay  in  barren  quagmire  the  live- 
long Winter  through,  unwakenable  from  the  clammy 
trance  of  their  yearly  death  even  by  the  cheerful 
voice  and  breath  of  coming  Spring,  are  now  gently 
transmitting  through  their  porous  texture,  the  health- 
ful rain  that  feeds  what  it  once  poisoned  ;  and  that 
as  every  shower  ceases,  then  comes  a  rich  after-gift 
of  atmospheric  air  following  in  a  thousand  sinuosi- 
ties the  threadlike  channels  down  which  the  rain, 
like  a  pioneer,  has  foutid  and  led  the  way  through 
the  soil,  to  the  very  drain,  three  or  four  feet  below 
the  surface.  What  a  thought  is  this,  to  those  who 
know  it,  and  have  earned  its  pleasure ! 

Nature  abhors  a  vacuum.  True,  most  true,  O 
philosophic  chemist!  Where  the  drop  has  once  dis- 
appeared through  the  soil,  it  has  dragged  the  air 
after  it,  and  with  the  air,  its  burthen  of  medicament, 


114  CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY   FARM. 

food,  and  temperature,  down  to  the  once  sluggish 
and  unawakened  subsoil  that  never  felt  its  ani- 
mating touch  before. 

"Oh!  Sir!  It's  a  fine  thing,  is  this  here  draining," 
said  an  old  laborer,  lifting  up  one  heavy  foot  on  the 
ledge  of  his  spade,  and  composing  himself  with  his 
elbow  resting  on  the  handle,  to  say  a  few  words,  be- 
fore he  put  his  jacket  on  and  parted  for  the  night.; 

"It's  a  fine  thing  is  this  here  draining:  what  a 
crop  o'  Turnips  '11  be  here  next  Autumn,  I'll  be 
bound  to  say!" 

Of  all  things  I  like  to  catch  the  toiler  in  his  spare 
but  hearty  moment  of  contemplation.  The  utterance 
of  an  abstract  thought  or  reflection  is  never  so  pre- 
cious as  when  it  struggles  for  a  moment  from  one 
whose  frame  is  almost  bent  double  with  the  hard 
practicality  of  daily  labor.  I  prize  it  beyond 
words. 

" It  is  a  glorious  thing,"  replied  I ;  "the  more  I  see 
of  its  effects,  the  more  I  like  it,  and  the  more  I  won- 
der how  the  land  was  ever  worked  before  without  it." 

"  Ah !  well,  Sir,  't  was  a  different  sort  of  thing  you 
see — 'twas  like  a  different  traade.  Lor'  blesh  you, 
I  remember  the  time  when  after  Wheat-sowing  was 
done  (and  sometimes  there  was  many  fields  so  as  it 
could  n't  be  got  in  at  all,  when  it  came  a  wet  season) 


A   WORD   AT   PARTING.  115 

the  farmer's  work  was  over  like,  for  the  year.  There 
was  nothing  to  be  done  but  sit  at  home  and  go  to 
sleep  till  the  Frost  came,  and  the  dung-cart  could  be 
got  a-field.  It  was  bad  work,  sir,  for  the  laborer — 
bad  work — when  he  was  turned  off'  for  the  winter, 
and  had  to  look  out  for  a  bit  o'  hedging  or  ditching 
somewhere  else,  miles  off  perhaps,  to  get  a  bit  o' 
bread  by." 

"Well,  we've  changed  that  however:  I  think  1 
may  truly  say  that  every  year,  to  me,  Winter  has 
been  a  busy  time." 

"And  it  will  be  too !  There'll  never  be  standing 
still  for  winter  work  again  on  this  here  farm,  as  long 
as  it  ever  lies  out  o'  doors,  let  who  will  farm  it !  for 
all  so  many  hedges  are  grubbed  up.  How  the 
Swedes  have  growwd,  to  be  sure,  on  that  piece  as 
we  drained  last  year!  I  never  saw  Ship  [sheep] 
look  better  :  and  I  remember  when  there  was  n't  a 
ship  on -the  farm,  or  a  Turnip  on  the  ground  to  feed 
'em  with." 

"D'ye  think  that  piece  will  stand  the  treading  of 
the  sheep  ? " 

"Bear  it!  Lor'  blesh  you,  it'll  come  up  as  mellow 
as  a  garden,  I'll  war'n'  it,  in  the  spring  :  it  treads  a 
little  leathery  in  some  places  in  the  middle  o'  the 
lands,  but  that'll  all  come  right  after  another  crop: 


116  CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY   FARM. 

it  don't  all  come  at  once  after  draining /  every 
year  tells  on  it." 

"You  think  that  really  is  the  case?" 

"  Think !  I  knowws  it,  Sir.  I  likes  it  every  year 
the  better  arter  the  draining:  but  I  do  think  (you'll 
excuse  me)  that  you  goes  a  little  too  dip  with  the 
tiles :  it  is  no  use  going  so  dip  into  the  clay" 

"  What,  three  feet !  Why  they  laugh  at  me  for 
draining  so  shallow !  If  you  were  to  see  what  they 
say  in  those  Papers  I  bring  into  the  field  sometimes, 
in  a  morning,  you  wouldn't  call  this  deep." 

"  Oh !  never  you  listen  to  what  them  there  papers 
says,  they  know  nothing  in  the  'varsal  world  about 
it.  They  beent  practical  farmers  as  writes  that 
stuff:  none  o'  them  as  writes  knows  any  thing  about 
farming." 

"D'ye  think  not?  Well,  but  now  suppose  I  were 
to  write  about  the  fields  we  have  drained,  and  send 
it  to  some  of  those  Editor  men  to  print  and  put  in 
the  paper,  would  n't  it  do  for  somebody  else  to  read  : 
wouldn't  it  be  as  true  after  it  was  in  print  as  it 
was  before,  when  we  were  doing  it?" 

"Oh  that's  a  different  thing,  that  is;  'cause  of 
course  they'd  believe  what  you  say "  , 

"Well,  now — suppose  I  were  to  put  it  as  a  sort 
of  history  of  this  Farm,  as  it  was,  and  as  it  is — a 


A   WORD   AT   PARTING.  117 

sort  of  chronicle — call  it  the  'Chronicle  of  a  Clay 
Farm'—?" 

"Oh  that's  capital!  Lord  how  I  should  like  to 
see  it :  that  'ould  be  summat  like,  that  would !  none 
o'  them  there  long  words  about  Chemists  and  Drug- 
gists and  Doctors'  stuff,  as  if  Farmers  was  a  parcel  o' 

old  women,  like  my  poor  old  Missus oh!  thank 

you  kindly  Sir  for  what  you  sent  her,  it  did  her  a 
sight  o'  good,  she  was  able  to  eat  her  vittles  better 
arterwards  than  she's  done  for  many  a  day — " 

"But  you  won't  believe  I  can  doctor  the  field  and 
give  that  an  appetite,  eh,  Dobson?" 

"Well  I  don't  know — I  ben't  no  scollard,  Sir — 
one  thing  however,  you've  tapped  the  dropsy  on  it, 
for  one  thing,  that's  sartin!" 

"  And  you  '11  believe  the  other  when  you ' ve  seen 
it.  Well,  good  night  Dobson/  " 

And  with  a  hearty  "good  night"  in  return, 
trudges  poor  old  Dobson  home  from  his  hard  ancl 
wet  day's  work,  with  none  the  heavier  heart  or  less 
elastic  tread  for  a  few  cheery  words  to  enliven  the 
dull  blank  of  the  body's  labor,  and  illuminate  for  a 
moment  that  hateful  chasm  that  lies  too  broad  and 
forbidding  between  employer  and  employed,  in  civ- 
ilized England. 

When  will  this  stain  depart  from  our  land?    When 


118  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

will  that  moody  silence  and  reserve  that  disconnects 
rank  from  rank,  and  class  from  class,  and  man  from 
his  brother  man,  cease  to  shut  us  up  from  each 
other's  view,  like  sealed  pacquets  of  humanity,  des- 
tined and  directed  "  private  and  confidential "  each 
to  its  own  special  clique  and  circle,  locking  up  the 
cheap  yet  gladdening  benevolence  of  words  from  all 
"below  "it. 

If  man,  vain  aspiring  man,  did  but  truly  measure 
the  resilient  influences  for  good  or  ill,  by  which  his 
own  existence  is  surrounded ;  if  he  did  but  know 
the  rich  freight  of  happiness  and  of  positive  blessing 
to  his  poorer  and  humbler  brethren,  which  he  bears 
within  him  in  the  mere  gift  of  language ;  if  instead 
of  reserving  all  his  soft  words  for  the  rich,  and  the 
caressing  of  the  tongue  for  those  who  least  require 
or  value  it,  he  would  stoop  to  remark  its  instant  ef- 
fect, and  permanent  influence  for  good,  on  those 
who  seldomest  receive  it,  how  changed  would  be  the 
working  out  of  that  strange  problem  of  Society 
which  is  ever  leaving  the  largest  numbers  most  un- 
cared  for,  their  power  and  influence  only  felt  when 
it  is  dangerous. 

Of  all  the  sweeteners  of  human  toil,  of  all  the 
motive  powers  that  give  alacrity  to  the  hand  or  foot, 
readiness  to  the  will,  intelligence  to  mind  and 


A   WORD   AT   PARTING.  119 

purpose,  the  quickest  and  the  most  enduring  in  re- 
sult is  the  kind  "word  spoken  in  season."  "How 
good  is  it!"  exclaims  the  Wisest  of  the  sons  of 
men.  The  most  boorish  obduracy  melts  at  last 
under  its  repeated  influence,  though,  hard  and  rough 
at  first  as  the  unsmelted  ore.  Horse-power  is  con- 
venient of  appliance,  Wind  and  Water  power  are 
cheap,  the  power  of  Steam  is  great,  the  sordid  power 
of  Money  greater  still ;  but  of  all  the  powers  that 
be,  to  rid  the  tiny  weed,  or  fell  the  stubborn  oak, 
the  greatest  agricultural  power  is  that  which  can 
gear  on  mind  to  matter — the  WORD  and  LOOK  of 
KINDNESS.* 

*  No  amount  of  instruction  which  our  author  could  im- 
part, would  command  from  us  a  higher  respect  than  this 
delightful  specimen  of  his  Humanity. — ED. 


122  CHRONICLES   OF   A  CLAY  FARM. 

and  down  another  street  too,  (the  only  attempt  at  a 
cross-street  there  was,)  for  it  was  a  corner  window 
commanding  therefore  at  a  glance  all  the  news  of 
the  town. 

Ay !  and  a  deal  more  too !  Its  wide  look-out  was, 
like  the  little  dogs  just  observed  upon,  emblematic 
as  well  as  actual.  It  was  the  News-room,  Reading- 
room,  Petty-Sessions-room,  Literary-and-Scientific- 
room,  Farmers'-Club-room,  and  a  great  many  other 
rooms  besides,  that  there  is  not  time  to  tell.  Enough 
to  say  that  the  smallest  pin  ever  manufactured  could 
hardly  have  alighted  point  downward  on  the  floor 
of  that  room — metaphorically  to  speak — but  every 
body  heard  it  ten  miles  round,  and  could  tell  you  the 
shape,  size,  color,  and  manufacturer's  name  within 
the  twenty-four  hours :  and  that  was  short  time  in 
those  days. 

I  shall  not  describe  that  room  or  its  bow-window 
any  further.  I  conceive  that  the  heaps  of  news- 
papers, with  the  noses  and  spectacles  poring  over 
them,  and  the  polished  mahogany  tables,  to  sit  and 
read  them  at  in  the  windows,  so  as  to  command  the 
news  inside  and  outside,  are  sufficiently  visible  to 
all  average  minds'-eyes  without  more  specification. 

Now  it  happened  that  at  the  top  of  a  column 
in  the  advertisement-page  of  the  "Wetlandshire 


"FAEM  TO  LET."  123 

Mercury,  which  was  lying  fresh  and  damp  from  the 
Press,  and  casting  a  hazy  pattern  of  itself  upon  the 
polish  of  one  of  those  same  mahoganies,  there  ap- 
peared, one  Saturday  morning,  in  the  autumn  of  the 
year  Eighteen-hundred-and-thirty  something,  a  short 
dab  of  an  advertisement  in  the  following  spasmodic 
phraseology : 

"  WETLANDSIIIRK — Farm  to  let ;  on  lease.  250 
acres.  One  third  Meadow  and  Pasture.  Has  been 
drained  and  otherwise  improved  in  the  hands  of  the 
proprietor.  Capital  required,  10Z.  to  the  acre.  Ap- 
plication, to  Messrs.  Penn  and  Debbitt,  Bogmoor, 
Wetlandshire." 

"I  say,  Mr.  Bowles,  have  you  seen  this  Farm 
that 's  advertised  here  ? " 

—  said  a  gentleman  sitting  in  the  window,  to 
another  gentleman,  in  deep  perusal  at  the  fire-place, 
of  which  he  had  taken  sole  seizin,  holding  it  by  the 
hobs  —  with  his  feet. 

"  Yes  :  —  No  :  What  is  it  ? "  said  the  voice  from 
the  fire-place,  uninquiringly,  and  smothered  in  a 
"  leading  article." 

"Why  here's  a  Farm  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
acres  to  let,  'drained  and  otherwise  improved  by 
the  proprietor.''  I  wonder  whose  it  is:  that's  just 


124:  CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY  FARM. 

the  sort  of  farm  young  "What's  'is  name  was  want- 
ing—  that  'ou'd  just  suit  him,  wouldn't  it?" 

""Well,  what  is  his  name,"  returned  the  other 
voice,  uninquiringly  again,  and  never  looking  up. 

"Why  young  —  oh!  what  is  his  name  —  I  shall 
forget  my  own  soon  " —  (a  grunt  from  the  fire-place) 
" — young  Leejohn,  you  know  him?  You  don't 
mean  to  say  you  do  n't  know  him  ?  " 

"I  didn't  say  I  didn't,"  answered  Mr.  Bowles 
with  provoking  gravity  of  iteration,  bent  upon  giv- 
ing the  smallest  modicum  of  intellect  to  any  thing 
else  till  he  had  finished  his  "  leader  : "  which  having 
just  accomplished  he  starts  up,  lets  go  the  hobs,  and 
parting  his  coat-tails,  turns  round,  and  again  takes 
possession  of  the  fire — indescribably  —  and  waking 
up  to  the  subject,  asks, 

"  But  how  can  he  take  it :  you  said  101.  to  the 
acre  did  n't  you  ?  He  has  n't  the  money.  ('Legion ' 
indeed!)" 

4"ord  bleshye?" 

Added  to  a  toss  up  of  the  chin  out  of  the  cravat, 
to  give  emphasis  to  the  middle  word,  this  invocation 
conveyed  all  the  answer  that  was  heard,  to  the  diffi- 
culty started  by  Mr.  Bowles.  "What  the  exact 
meaning  was  that  lay  wrapt  up  in  the  blessing  — 
whether  it  was  peremptorily  favorable  to  young 


"FARM  TO  LET."  125 

Lecjohn's  pecuniary  capabilities,  or  conclusive  of 
some  indifference  attaching  in  ioto  to  the  inquiry, 
has  remained  dark  to  the  present  day.  The  sub- 
ject fell,  strangled  by  some  larger  topic  of  news- 
room discussion :  and  the  Chronicle  is  without  a 
scholiast. 

Two  or  three  days  after  the  appearance  of  this  epi- 
grammatic announcement  in  the  "  Mercury,"  a  thick 
and  weighty-looking  pacquet,  directed  in  what  may 
for  contradistinction's  sake,  be  called  "  Square-text," 
might  be  seen  lying  upon  the  margin  of  a  breakfast- 
table,  on  which  lay  also  an  admired  disorder  of 
newspapers,  books,  farm  accounts,  and  coffee-cups. 
The  room  itself  in  which  the  table  stood  is  just 
worth  a  moment's  notice  before  any  body  comes  in. 
Small,  oak-paneled,  and  too  square  for  proportion, 
it  was  crammed,  in  every  corner  and  upon  every 
table,  with  miscellaneous  piles  of  articles  which 
seemed  to  have  grown  together  by  degrees  in  spite 
of  original  incongruity,  and  become  reconciled  at 
last  by  lying  under  the  same  dust.  "Indoor,"  and 
"  out-o'-door "  seemed  to  contend  for  the  mastery 
all  over  the  room  :  if  you  looked  into  the  corners 
you  might  have  fancied  yourself  in  a  garden-tool- 
house,  if  you  looked  on  the  mantel-piece  you  thought 
of  a  chemist's  shop  :  four  dried  lumps  of  soil  as 


126  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

hard  as  stones,  lay  at  one  end  of  it  on  separate 
pieces  of  ex-white  paper,  and  through  their  coating 
of  dust  feebly  indicated  the  three  primary  colors, 
blue,  red  and  yellow^  with  a  sort  of  gray  for  the 
fourth.  Over  several  tiers  of  newspapers  between 
the  windows,  at  the  further  end  of  the  room,  lay 
at  full  length  two  "  new  and  improved  "  Drainage- 
levels —  out  of  Spirit  though  —  for  each  was  care- 
fully tied  up  with  a  direction  card  to  the  maker  : 
"rejected  addresses,"  evidently.  Old  combinations, 
unmeaning  and  half  meaning,  disported  themselves 
over  the  confusion  of  the  little  den  :  the  end  of  a 
large  pruning-knife  peered  out  between  the  sheets 
of  a  new  half-cut  volume  marked  "Dendrology," 
suggesting  something  about  Theory  and  Practice, 
and  clearly  exhibiting  by  the  jagged  leaves,  the 
moral  as  well  as  physical  truth  that  sharp  knives 
are  bad  paper  cutters.  An  old  quarto  volume  of 
Raleigh's  History  of  the  World,  in  black  letter,  lay 
open  on  a  little  table  near  the  fire-place,  with  a  bun- 
dle of  Cigars  and  some  papers  of  Potato-seed  on 
one  page :  —  and  a  small  sharp  Ax  on  the  other. 
A  small  hone  lay  near,  and  a  drop  of  blood,  along 
the  edge,  had  left  mark  of  some  awkardness  or  haste 
and  had  smeared  the  page  below  with  an  ugly 
red  lino  under  the  word  GEATITUDE.  Except  a 


"FARM  TO  LET."  127 

tolerably  well-filled  book-case  too  much  stuffed  with 
stitched  reports  and  periodicals,  there  was  nothing 
else  noticeable  in  the  general  medley,  excepting 
an  ingenious  atrocity  in  the  shape  of  an  easy  chair 
with  a  traversing  desk,  and  a  shaded  reading-lamp, 
screwed  into  one  of  the  arms.  A  wood  fire  had 
burnt  out  in  the  hearth,  leaving  the  ends  of  the 
brands  reclined  despondingly  against  the  "dogs," — 
old  fashioned  and  biped  articles,  which  reared 
each  a  long  swan  neck  and  head  of  silver,  by  way 
of  focal  ornament  and  finish,  and  which  people 
who  came  on  business  always  fixed  their  eyes  upon, 
and  at  some  convenient  pause  registered  their  ap- 
proval of,  in  a  tone  that  took  some  credit  for  origi- 
nality of  taste. 

The  windows  looked  eastward,  and  the  sun  was 
shining  in :  the  weighty-looking  pacquet  had  not 
been  long  on  the  table  before  the  door  opened,  and 
a  shooting-jacket,  waistcoat  and  trowsers,  all  of  the 
same  pattern,  entered  the  room :  a  cup  of  coffee  was 
hastily  poured  out,  and  the  seal  of  the  pacquet 
broken.  A  quantity  of  letters  fell  out ;  one  of  which 
ran  as  follows : 

"Dear  Sir, — We  inclose  to  you  applications  for 
Farm,  marked  1  to  14,  of  which  be  pleased  to  return 
those  you  wish  answered.  "We  had  yesterday -six 


128  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

parties  who  called,  wishing  to  inspect  personally  and 
have  refusal  of  same.  "We  will  forward  you  further 
particulars  to-morrow. 

"We  are,  Sir,  yours  very  truly, 

"  PENN  and  DEBBITT." 

"Marked  one  to  fourteen — plus  six"  muttered  the 
owner  of  the  shooting-jacket,  slowly  putting  down  the 
letter  among  the  others,  seating  himself  in  the  arm- 
chair and  swallowing  the  lion's  half  of  the  first  cup 
of  coffee.  "Two  days'  notice  —  no!  not  so  much; 
not  two — and  twenty  applications. —  Hmm!" 

Having  delivered  himself  of  this  reflection  with 
that  deliberate  and  abstracted  utterance  betokening 
more  thought  than  syllables,  he  gradually  fell  into  a 
posture — the  head  upon  the  hand  and  the  elbow  on 
the  chair-arm  —  which  indicates  that  state  of  mind  — 
deriving  its  name  from  the  cloven-footed  race  who 
patiently  swallow  things  twice  over,  dining  at  one 
hour  and  chewing  at  another — yclept 'Ruminating. 

"And  so,  my  poor  old  Farm,  I  must  now  bid  you 
farewell.  I  who  have  taken  your  part  through  good 
and  ill  report — know  the  course  of  every  drain  and 
could  find  blindfold  every  weeping  outflow  that  has 
wrought  so  fair  a  change  in  your  once  untoward 
look,  and  ill-name :  earth's  tears  of  penitence  and 
Promise!  I  who  have  taught  you  by  anxious  toil 


"FARM  TO  LET."  129 

through  many  a  long  dull  day  that  serene  and 
smiling  look  you  wear  this  lovely  morning,  which 
even  in  your  plain  face  betokens  something  good  at 
heart.  Well!  may  he  who  wins  deserve, —  as  many 
a  sad  heart  has  said,  after  all  its  watchful  care,  in 
cases  not  altogether  dissimilar. —  Now  let  us  see 
something  of  the  suitors ! " 

This  last  remark  seemed  to  have  reference  to  the 
heap  of  letters  "marked  1  to  14,"  but  before  the 
action  could  be  suited  to  the  word,  it  was  arrested 
by  something  which  aforetime  has  arrested  a  good 
many  words  and  actions  :  a  gentle  KNOCK.* 

*  To  tho  graphic  originality  of  this  chapter  wo  can  only 
remark,  that  whoever  tho  writer  may  bo,  ho  adds  to  his 
accomplishments  as  a  thoroujh-bred  farmer,  tho  graces  of  a 

finished  scholar. — ED. 

6* 


XIY. 

AN  "APPLICATION." 

IF  there  is  one  class  of  mind  in  the  world  with  a 
native  antipathy  to  improvement,  there  is  another, 
and  much  more  really  mischievous,  which  seems 
ever  destined  to  caricature  it.  As  every  animal, 
however  noxious  and  seemingly  useless,  has  its  ap- 
pointed prey,  so  do  the  natural  enemies  of  all  scien- 
tific advancement  in  their  own  art,  trade,  or  calling, 
whatever  that  may  be,  find  a  never-failing  source  of 
triumph  and  enjoyment  in  cracking  the  bones  of 
blundering  Enthusiasts  who  dog  the  path  of  pro- 
gressing Truth,  like  distorting  shadows,  throwing 
her  calm  clear  profile  against  each  passing  object,  in 
every  variety  of  burlesqued  and  ridiculous  outline. 
It  has  puzzled  philosophers  of  moderate  patience 
and  observation,  to  reflect  upon  this  fact :  forgetting, 
or  never  having  noticed,  the  gentle-handed  toler- 
ance which  marks  the  parent  discipline  of  Nature, 


AN  "APPLICATION."  131 

over  her  inter-squabbling  and  mutually  intolerant 
children,  they  wonder  she  interferes  so  seldom,  and 
with  such  mild  half-measures  to  rescue  her  belea- 
guered sons,  if  not  from  the  foes  in  front,  at  least 
from  the  fools  behind  that  go  bleating  about,  exagger- 
ating every  fact  like  street-news-mongers ;  dressed 
in  the  livery  of  science  like  a  monkey  in  regi- 
mentals, and  understanding  and  appreciating  the 
language  they  talk  at  second-hand,  as  much  as  the 
organ-grinder  does  the  opera-tune  that  his  winch 
works  threadbare. 

A  good,  solid,  impenetrable  advocate  of  old-fash- 
ioned ignorance,  falling  foul  of  one  of  these  light 
gentry,  snaps  him  up  at  a  mouthful;  and  no  harm 
done  neither:  but  the  mischief  lies  in  the  corol- 
lary— "So  much  for  your  Science/"* 

Agriculture  has  had  enough  of  this,  and  some- 
thing to  spare.  Counterfeits  of  every  sort  and 
shape  have  crowded  at  the  heels  of  every  improve- 
ment, every  invention,  every  good  suggestion,  every 
new  manure ;  till  art  and  Science  are  well-nigh 
ashamed  of  the  sound  of  their  own  names,  and  are 

*  Thousands  of  inquiring,  liberal-hearted  young  men,  have 
been  driven  from  the  paternal  farm  by  the  stupid  voice  of 
ridicule  brutishly  leveled  at  their  attempts  at  knowledge  in 
what  should  have  been  their  legitimate  calling,  and  in  which, 


132  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FAEM. 

fain  to  wear  smock-frocks  for  incognito.  The 
plague  that  has  reached  its  height  in  the  present 
decade,  was  beginning  its  infective  process  in  the 
last,  of  our  nineteenth  century.  It  knocked  that 
gentle  knock  at  the  door  that  ended  a  former 
chapter  of  our  chronicle ;  and  it  was  ushered  in, 
(as  what  plague  is  not?)  in  the  most  pleasing  and 
attractive  form  imaginable. 

A  very  young-looking  little  personage,  very 
smartly  dressed,  having  sat  himself  down,  and 
got  pretty  well  at  ease  in  the  course  of  a  prelim- 
inary announcement  that  he  had  ridden  over  thus 
early  in  consequence  of  a  visit  to  Messrs.  Penn 
and  Debbitt  on  the  previous  day ;  without  giving 
occasion  of  much  reply,  proceeded  to  deliver  him- 
self of  a  little  harangue  of  which  the  world  at 
large  having  already  been  delayed  the  benefit 

had  their  inclinations  been  indulged,  they  would  have  proved 
«'  shining  lights  "  to  those  around  them,  to  become  but  moder- 
ate masters  of  a  "  profession,"  or  toil-worn  and  unsuccessful 
aspirants  in  some  one  or  other  of  the  bustling  pursuits  of  life, 
in  which  competition  has  always  elbowed  them  aside.  Such 
examples  are  not  to  be  classed  with  the  noisy  pretenders 
alluded  to  in  the  text,  whoso  long-practiced  quackery  has 
rendered  the  uneducated  farmer  callous  to  the  aspirations  of 
honest  investigation. — ED. 


AN  "APPLICATION."  133 

for  some  ten   or  fifteen  years,  must   now  content 
itself  with  an  abstract. 

It  appeared  —  from  this  discourse  —  that  Agri- 
culture was  a  most  interesting  hart  —  but  quite 
in  its  hinfancy  —  quite  entirely  so.  The  farmers 
were  a  very  hignorant  class,  and  knew  noth- 
ing whatever  about  it — nothing  what-hever.  The 
land  did  not  produce  enough  by  arf — not  a 
quarter  what  it  hought  to  du.  Summer  fallowing 
was  a  shocking  waste  of  time  and  expense :  a 
pair  of  'orses  were  enough  to  plough  the  stiffest 
land  —  to  any  depth.  Farm-yard  manure  was 
good  for  nothing.  Go-anner  was  the  thing ;  and 
the  four-course  system,  which  no  landlord  ought 
to  allow  his  tenants  to  adopt  hany  other.  Six 
feet  deep  and  forty  yards  wide  was  decidedly  the 
proper  depth  and  distance  for  drains,  and  if  the 
clay  was  well  stamped  down  upon  the  tile  this 
would  drain  the  wettest  land  hamply  ar.d  effect- 
chally.  But  no  "agriculturist"  could  be  expected 
to  lay  out  his  capital  in  these  improvements  without 
a  Lease — nineteen  years  at  least,  as  they  ave  in 
Scotland.  With  a  demand  of  which  —  after  many 
other  useful  hints  about  game,  &c.,  the  lecturer  con- 
cluded his  remarks  ;  offering  to  exemplfy  them  in  his 
own  little  person  upon  the  identical  "  Clay  Farm." 


134  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

The  stupid  old  chronicler  meanwhile — (the  wearer 
of  the  shooting  jacket  before-mentioned)  during  his 
eloquent  outpouring,  seemed  somehow  to  have  got 
into  the  clouds.  During  the  first  half  of  it,  he 
had  never  taken  eyes  or  ears  off  the  speaker; 
when  at  length  he  did,  it  was  only  to  put  his 
hand  and  handkerchief  over  the  former,  so  that 
they  were  quite  buried,  though  once  or  twice  a 
keen  observer,  not  himself  oratorically  engaged, 
might  have  just  perceived  a  very  slight  spasm 
or  convulsion  of  the  figure,  and  a  sudden  redness 
of  the  temples  over  the  edge  of  the  kerchief;  but 
the  momentary  cough,  or  sneeze,  or  whatever  it 
was  that  ailed  or  choked  him,  passed  away ;  — 
and  when  the  address  was  over  that  had  been 
charming  so  long  and  wisely,  he  looked  slowly 
up,  like  a  person  whose  thoughts  had  been  wan- 
dering far  away,  and  must  be  recalled  like  a 
lot  of  stray  heifers,  before  he  could  put  the 
question  — 

"  Have  you  farmed  extensively,  Mr. " 

"No,  Sir  ;  not  exactly  —  at  least  —  not  myself  as 
yet ;  but  I  've  seen  a  good  deal  of  agriculture  ;  that 
is,  I've  been  over  some  of  the  most  celebrated 
agricultural  establishments,  that  of  Mr  Speedwell  in 
Netherlandshire  —  the  Kev.  Mr.  Forechalk's  Farm 


AN  "APPLICATION."  135 

on  the  Highdowns  :  I  'v.e  been  over  Lord  Burytile's 
Drainage-works  in  South  Dampshire,  with  his  Lord- 
ship's steward  ;  and  I  am  familiar  with  Mr.  Mac 
Scuffler's  great  concern  in  Inthemess  shire,  1ST.B. — 
I  know  Mr.  Mac  Scuffler  very  well.  By  the  way  I 
presume,  Sir,  you  allow  a  tenant  to  take  Jiout  f  " 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  ? " 

"  You  would  allow  me,  I  say,  to  take  out  —  a' 
I'm  not  much  of  a  sportsman  myself,  but  if  a 
friend  should  come — " 

"  A  certificate  —  oh  !  I  understand  : You  've 

seen  the  Scotch  farming  then  ?  did  you  study  long 
with  Mr.  Mac  Scuffler?" 

"  Oh !  no  :  it  was  n't  to  study  :  I  often  go  and 
stay  with  him :  ah  !  that  is  farming !  He  has  n't  an 
acre  of  grassland  :  not  a  bit  except  the  grass-plot 
before  his  door,  and  he  says  he  should  n't  keep  that 
except  to  wipe  his  shoes  on." 

"Ah!  well:  We  are  rather  proud  of  our  dairy 

pastures  though,  here.  Are  you  married  Mr. ? 

Excuse  my — " 

"Not  yet  Sir,  but  I'm  going  to  be.  It  is  on  that 
account  I  mean  to  take  a  farm.  I've  a  thousand 
pounds  of  my  own;  and  She — that  is — her  aunt, 
who  died  lately,  left  her  a  thousand  pounds ;  rather 
more  I  believe — so  we  shall  have  plenty  to  begin 


134:  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

The  stupid  old  chronicler  meanwhile — (the  wearer 
of  the  shooting  jacket  before-mentioned)  during  his 
eloquent  outpouring,  seemed  somehow  to  have  got 
into  the  clouds.  During  the  first  half  of  it,  he 
had  never  taken  eyes  or  ears  off  the  speaker; 
when  at  length  he  did,  it  was  only  to  put  his 
hand  and  handkerchief  over  the  former,  so  that 
they  were  quite  buried,  though  once  or  twice  a 
keen  observer,  not  himself  oratorically  engaged, 
might  have  just  perceived  a  very  slight  spasm 
or  convulsion  of  the  figure,  and  a  sudden  redness 
of  the  temples  over  the  edge  of  the  kerchief;  but 
the  momentary  cough,  or  sneeze,  or  whatever  it 
was  that  ailed  or  choked  him,  passed  away ;  — 
and  when  the  address  was  over  that  had  been 
charming  so  long  and  wisely,  he  looked  slowly 
up,  like  a  person  whose  thoughts  had  been  wan- 
dering far  away,  and  must  be  recalled  like  a 
lot  of  stray  heifers,  before  he  could  put  the 
question  — 

"  Have  you  farmed  extensively,  Mr. " 

"  !No,  Sir  ;  not  exactly  —  at  least  —  not  myself  as 
yet ;  but  I  've  seen  a  good  deal  of  agriculture  ;  that 
is,  I've  been  over  some  of  the  most  celebrated 
agricultural  establishments,  that  of  Mr  Speedwell  in 
Netherlandshire  —  the  Kev.  Mr.  Forechalk's  Farm 


AH  "APPLICATION."  135 

on  the  Highdowns  :  I  'v.e  been  over  Lord  Burytile's 
Drainage-works  in  South  Dampshire,  with  his  Lord- 
ship's steward  ;  and  I  am  familiar  with  Mr.  Mac 
Scuffler's  great  concern  in  Inthemess  shire,  N.B. — 
I  know  Mr.  Mac  Scuffler  very  well.  By  the  way  I 
presume,  Sir,  you  allow  a  tenant  to  tcike  Jiout  f  " 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  ? " 

"  You  would  allow  me,  I  say,  to  take  out  —  a' 
I'm  not  much  of  a  sportsman  myself,  but  if  a 
friend  should  come — " 

"  A  certificate  —  oh  !  I  understand  : You  've 

seen  the  Scotch  farming  then  ?  did  you  study  long 
with  Mr.  Mac  Scuffler?" 

"  Oh !  no  :  it  was  n't  to  study  :  I  often  go  and 
stay  with  him  :  ah  !  that  is  farming !  He  has  n't  an 
acre  of  grassland  :  not  a  bit  except  the  grass-plot 
before  his  door,  and  he  says  he  should  n't  keep  that 
except  to  wipe  his  shoes  on." 

"Ah!  well:  We  are  rather  proud  of  our  dairy 

pastures  though,  here.  Are  you  married  Mr. ? 

Excuse  my — " 

"  Not  yet  Sir,  but  I  'm  going  to  be.  It  is  on  that 
account  I  mean  to  take  a  farm.  I've  a  thousand 
pounds  of  my  own;  and  She — that  is — her  aunt, 
who  died  lately,  left  her  a  thousand  pounds ;  rather 
more  I  believe — so  we  shall  have  plenty  to  begin 


136  CHKONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

upon.  Mr.  Mac  Scuffler  has  promised  to  send  me  a 
Scotch  plow  and  four  capital  horses,  Cleveland s  I 
think  he  calls  them  —  such  steppers  —  you'd  be 
astonished  to  see  the  rate  they  go  over  the  ground. 

"Are  her  family  connected  with  —  with  '-AgricuL 
ture,' — is  her  father  a — " 

"A  Farmer?  Oh!  no.  He  was  in  trade  :  but  he 
is  dead :  she  was  living  with  her  aunt  till  lately." 

A  few  moments'  pause  ensued  :  the  free  youthful 
expression  of  self-confidence  on  the  face  of  the 
speaker,  contrasting  curiously  with  the  somewhat 
puzzled  and  half-painful  thoughtfulness  expressed 
by  the  other  party  to  this  brisk  dialogue.  This 
expression  however  suddenly  changed  —  and  the 
wearer  getting  up  and  going  to  the  book-case, 
pulled  out,  as  if  in  reference  to  the  discussion  just 
pending  —  a  thick  quarto  volume;  and  having 
blown  a  little  cloud  of  dust  from  it  into  the  fire- 
place, and  wrapping  it  together  once  or  twice, 
apparently  to  complete  the  purgation,  he  walked  up 
and  quietly  laid  it  down,  open,  before  his  visitor. 

"Would  you  oblige  me  by  reading  me  a  page  of 
this?" 

The  other  stared  —  "  Read  this !  why  gracious  me, 
Sir!  I  can't!  "Why,  it's  Greek  or  Latin  or  some- 
thing!" 


AN  "APPLICATION."  137 

"Three  lines  will  do." 

"I  can't,  Sir,  really!  I  couldn't  read  a  word  of  it 
if  you  'd  give  me  the  world ! " 

"  One  single  line." 

"I  can't  indeed!  I  never  learnt  a  word  o'  this 
stuff." 

"An  agricultural  author  too!  His  name  is  Theo- 
phrastus.  It's  all  about  Wheat,  Beans — Egyptian 
beans — the  same  you  buy  at  Mark-lane  kiln-dried, 
and  all  sorts  of  other  plants  and  vegetables.  Surely 
you  can  read  it?" 

"  Not  if  all  I  have  in  the  world  depended  on  it ! 
I  never  learnt  the  alphabet !  " 

"  Thank  you,  my  young  friend  —  that 's  an  honest 
answer.  Now  observe :  you  arc  going  to  pledge 
'  all  you  have  in  the  world,'  and  all  that  Somebody 
else  has  too  —  that  you  can  farm'  and  you've 
never  learnt  the  alphabet  of  that!  The  task  you 
see  before  you  in  that  book,  and  think  so  difficult, 
is  but  the  acquirement  of  a  few  years  ;  the  other 
is  the  labor —  of  a  life —  of  many  lives  —  and  not 
learnt  yet.  I'm  not  joking,  believe  me.  I  speak 
seriously ;  I  've  burnt  daylight  and  candlelight, 
a  fair  share,  over  both.  Why  do  you  think  — 
why  does  everybody  think  —  that  he  can  farm 
without  having  learnt  how  ;  that  agriculture  (if 


138  CIIEONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

you  like  that  word  best)  is  an  exception  to  every 
other  human  labor  or  pursuit,  a  contradiction  to 
all  Natural  Law,  and  will  bring  a  livelihood  with- 
out study,  cost  or  apprenticeship  :  that  to  be  able 
to  gabble  over  the  pet  jargon  about  the  ignorance 
of  our  forefathers  — " 

The  old  Chronicler  was  warming  up  —  and  be- 
ginning to  lurch  about  in  his  chair  like  a  grain- 
laden  Dutchman  clearing  out  of  harbor;  —  but  a 
look  of  something  in  the  other's  face  just  happened 
to  catch  his  eye  —  a  look  that  somehow  can  break 
down  —  and  go  right  through  a  barred  and  bolted 
door  better  than  artillery  and  powder-bags  —  a 
look  that  trips  up  anger  and  makes  it  fall  flat 
on  its  face  —  that  melts  arguments  into  a  jelly  — 
a  sort  of  look  between  simplicity  and  penitence  — 
a  slight  quiver  about  the  mouth  like  that  of  a 
child  convicted  in  a  first  fault  — 

The  steam  was  turned  off  in  an  instant  —  the 
safety  valve  opened  of  its  own  accord  :  that  pre- 
cious valve  that  the  Great  Author  has  placed  in 
the  inner  heart  of  man,  no  matter  how  many 
rough  coats  are  wrapped  over  it — 

"  Come,  come !  We  '11  make  a  bargain  after  all. 
An  early  visit  deserves  to  do  business.  You  're 
still  young — very  young.  Take  a  word  of  advice 


AN  "APPLICATION."  139 

from  an  old  head.  Go  to  your  friend  Mr.  Mac 
Scuffler  —  ask  him  to  take  you  for  two  or  three 
years:  it's  soon  gone.  Work  away  for  dear  life 
at  Ms  farm,  and  make  him  tell  you  all  he  knows. 
Fancy  that  it  is  your  money  instead  of  his  that 
buys  every  ton  of  manure  he  expends.  Put  off 
your  wedding  a  little  bit  :  she  '11  be  constant  if 
you  are  :  and  come  to  me  three  years  hence  ;  I 
was  as  young  as  you  once  ;  and  when  you  're 
as  old  as  I  am  you  won't  repent  my  advice.  I  '11 
look  out  something  by  that  time  that  will  suit 
you  better  than  this." 

There  was  a  shaking  of  hands.  A  promise  on 
both  sides  :  The  door  closed  :  and  the  momentary 
flush  of  warmth  fell  away  from  a  pair  of  old  cheeks, 
like  a  red  oak-leaf  from  the  bare  tough  in  Novem- 
ber, as  the  letters  "  marked  1  to  14 "  were  slowly 
taken  up  one  by  one,  and  glanced  at  with  the 
leaden  eye  of  habitude. 


XV. 

"LANDLORD  AND  TENANT." 

To  people  of  that  happily  constituted  mind  in  which 
the  hope  and  faith  in  the  moral  progress  of  their 
own  race,  and  the  sanguine  watching  of  its  slow- 
creeping  evidences,  furnish  a  continual,  albeit  a 
slender,  banquet  —  whose  patient  and  far-reaching 
charity  may  be  truly  said  to  "feed  upon  air,  prom- 
ise-crammed ; "  it  must  furnish  an  occasional,  and 
not  infrequent  pang  of  almost  despondency  to 
witness  how  slightly,  how  remotely,  the  best  re- 
marks of  the  best  philosophers,  the  most  practical 
advice  of  the  most  practical  moralists,  does  actually 
reach,  touch,  affect,  enter  into,  or  flavor  the  recipro- 
cal thoughts  and  actions  of  men  in  the  working-day 
routine  of  "business"  life.  Business  is  the  word, 
business  is  the  excuse,  business  is  the  conventional 
and  accepted  basis  for  a  code  of  human  action, 
as  unlike  and  opposed  to  what  is  declared,  and 


"LANDLORD  AND  TENANT."  14:1 

sincerely  believed,  to  be  conducive  to  true  hap- 
piness in  every  other  department  of  life,  as  Mon- 
day's conversation  is  sometimes  at  variance  with 
the  good  feeling  or  good  resolutions  experienced 
at  the  close  of  Sunday's  sermon. 

It  is  as  long  ago  as  the  days  of  Charles  II.  that 
in  one  of  these  same  "  Sunday  sermons  "  a  remark 
was  made  which  has  not  only  traveled  down  safely 
to  our  own  time,  but  enjoyed  the  more  remarkable 
truth-stamp  of  instant  activity  in  its  own,  in  being 
carried  away  by  two  listeners,  who  the  following 
day  met  each  other  half-way  to  shake  hands  and 
settle,  by  a  little  mutual  concession,  some  troubled 
subject  that  had  long  kept  them  wide  apart.  The 
remark  was  that  "  Selfishnesse  seeking  but  its  own 
sunshine  is  blynded,  lookynge  on  the  light ;  but 
wisdome,  like  a  true  archer,  turneth  his  own  back 
to  the  sunne,  and  letting  the  light  fall  upon  the 
mark,  taketh  a  steadier  and  surer  aym  :  and  thus 
should  he  who  seeketh  his  own  happiness  consider 
well  the  posture  of  his  neighbour,  and  placing  him- 
self therein,  look  back  as  it  were  upon  himselfe  ; 
and  most  surely,  after  due  habit,  (for  the  tryal  is 
at  first  of  difficult  empryse,)  he  shall  find  the 
whole  matter  between  them  such  as  one  may 
presently  know  wherein  the  due  correction  lyeth." 


142  CHRONICLES    OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

To  those  complicate  relations  of  life  in  which 
there  is  at  once  antagonism  of  interest  yet  mutu- 
ality of  object ;  to  that  relation  (for  present  in- 
stance) implied  by  the  words  "  Landlord  and 
Tenant,"  how  close,  how  admirably  apposite  seems 
the  quaint  rule  laid  down  by  the  good  old  church- 
man !  "  Place  yourself  in  your  neighbor's  position," 
he  seems  to  say  (though  indeed  his  language  needs 
no  paraphase,)  "  and  look  back  upon  yourself  from 
that  point:  the  thing  is  difficult,  and  there  is  little 
danger  of  your  getting  too  perfect  in  the  art  of 
looking  on  your  own  interest  with  your  neighbor's 
eyes.  Let  the  Antagonism  between  your  interest 
and  his  be  for  the  time  imaginary,  the  Mutuality 
real.  So  will  you  see  your  own  best  interest  and 
happiness  in  truer  light  and  leisure,  by  taking 
your  neighbor's  judgment,  even  for  his  own  ends, 
into  council  with  your  own." 

The  too  frequent  practice  is  to  do  the  exact 
reverse  :  to  realize  the  antagonism,  and  make  the 
mutuality  a  fiction  and  a  humbug.  What  the 
effect  is  —  first  upon  the  soil,  secondly  upon  the 
laborer,  and  thirdly  on  the  public  wealth,  wherever 
this  mistaken  system  has  been  long  in  operation, 
let  him  say  who  has  seen  a  country,  a  district,  or 
even  a  single  acre  which  has  been  the  arena  of 


"LANDLORD  AND  TENANT."  143 

pure  unmitigated  selfishness,  on  the  part  of  its 
Owners  and  Occupiers,  and  all  who  come  between 
the  two.  The  signs  are  not  easily  mistakable  ;  — 
beggared  land,  beggared  laborers,  beggared  parish- 
funds,  and  beggared  public  finances  can  be  recog- 
nized afar.  They  reach  every  sense  ;  the  eye  can 
see  it,  the  ear  can  hear  it,  the  nose  can  smell  it,  the 
hands  can  handle  it.  In  time  the  perception  reaches 
the  inner  senses  :  and  the  mind  begins  to  under- 
stand that  this  corruption  is  the  work  of  mistaken 
selfishness.  The  laws  of  Nature  and  Society  press 
gently  and  agreeably  around  a  man,  till  he  oifends 
them  by  long  neglect,  and  the  selfish  notion  that 
they  can  be  starved  and  stinted,  harmlessly.  Then 
they  come  in  force  :  and  evince  their  presence  and 
reality  by  pain,  instead  of  pleasure.  Then  the 
great  problems  of  society  begin  to  work  themselves 
out  under  high  pressure. 

In  the  early  stages  of  the  world  they  are  simple 
enough.  "When  every  man  tilled  his  own  field,  the 
duties  of  Landlord  and  Tenant  needed  small  defini- 
tion. But  advancement  complicates  relations  :  pres- 
ently the  time  comes  when  you  begin  to  see  one 
man  cultivating  the  soil  of  another :  and  that  not 
only  without  wages,  but  paying  the  owner  for 
leave  and  license!  Mouths  have  increased  upon 


CHRONICLES   OF   A  CLAY  FARM. 

the  land  ;  but  the  land  measures  the  same.  Acres 
don't  grow.  New  in  closure  eases  the  pressure  for 
awhile ;  and  like  the  rising  water-mark  of  a  flood, 
the  plough-line  steals  up  the  mountain-side  —  higher 
—  and  higher  yet, —  it  grates  upon  the  bare  rock  — 
and  stops.  But  what  has  happened  meanwhile  in 
the  rich  valley  ?  Industry,  skill,  perseverance, 
prudence,  self-denial,  far-sightedness, —  all,  some,  or 
one  of  these  qualities  have  made  individuals — or 
their  lucky  heirs — owrners  of  more  than  they  can 
cultivate  themselves.  The  last  bit  of  moor  or 
mountain-side  was  the  measure  of  the  extreme 
point  at  which  cultivation  would  pay :  that  bit 
hanging  between  earth  and  heaven  in  more  than 
one  sense,  was  the  balancing-point,  the  test  of  cul- 
Uvability.  It  just  pays  for  tillage  ;  and  nothing 
more.  A  man  perchance  may  ask  your  leave  to 
dig  or  plough  it :  but  for  that  leave  he  offers  you  no 
return  —  no  Reddendum —  in  modern  English,  no 
KENT. 

Here,  then,  is  the  origin  of  that  curious  thing 
whose  definition  has  sorely  puzzled  the  Political 
Economists.  And  well  may  it  have  puzzled  :  for  it 
is  the  basis  of  one  of  the  most  complicate  and 
peculiar  relations  that  has  come  to  exist  between 
man  arid  man.  Mutuality  of  object,  antagonism  of 


"LANDLORD  AND  TENANT."  145 

interest,  upon  the  same  ground,  raise  a  demand 
upon  each  of  the  parties  for  one  of  the  most  difficult 
things  that  human  nature  can  be  asked  for — modi- 
fied interest.  It  is  easy  to  say  that  Land  may  be 
let  like  a  house,  or  a  Wharf.  So  it  may.  But  with 
the  mere  lease  ends  all  the  similitude ;  except  such 
as  lies  between  dead  stone  walls  shaped  and  laid 
together  by  human  hands,  and  the  living,  teeming 
earth  whose  fertile  bosom  is  impregnate  with  the 
perpetual  action  of  a  life-producing  agency.  "We 
talk  of  the  "  constituents  of  the  soil,"  and  something 
we  may  know  of  them :  but  who  can  unravel  the 
wondrous  tale  of  their  intercourse  and  inter-action, 
or  bind  them  captive  to  the  dry  covenants  of  a 
motive-chilling  lease?  So  may  a  leaf  or  a  flower  be 
"manufactured,"  or  an  animal  "carved"  in  wood 
or  stone  :  but  they  are  deficient  in  that  one  element 
which  was  said  to  have  reached  its  acme  from 
human  art  when  the  watch  was  heard  ticking  in 
the  pocket  of  the  dead  soldier. 

In  a  word,  brick-and-mortar  walls,  lath-and -plaster 
partitions,  oak  floors,  and  marble  chimney-pieces, 
are  dead  things,  the  fitting  subjects  of  a  dead  con- 
tract :  but  there  is  a  still  life,  a  rebounding  vitality 
for  good  or  ill  in  the  Soil  —  the  glorious  handy-work 

of  a  higher  manufacture  —  that  will  hardly  brook 

7 


146  CHKONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

the  dull  sloth  of  sleeping  partnership.  Not  organ- 
ized itself,  it  is  yet  the  active  source  of  organism. 
Its  gifts  come  to  man  duty-laden.  To  take  the  one 
without  the  other  is,  in  the  long  run,  impossible. 
And  curiously  enough,  the  Earth  is  herself  the  first 
witness  of  a  breach  of  the  duties  she  devolves  on 
and  between  those  who  cultivate,  or  inherit,  her 
gifts,  as  she  was  of  the  earliest  wrong  committed 
between  man  and  his  brother  man.  She  speaks, 
with  most  miraculous  organ ;  and  tells  you  the 
character  of  the  cultivator,  or  the  proprietor,  or 
both,  as  plainly  as  your  eyes  may  choose  to  read  it. 
Take  a  walk  through  an  Allotment-ground.*  To 
an  expert  eye,  does  not  each  little  oblong  plot  of 
land,  with  its  varied  produce,  care,  culture,  and 
condition,  tell  its  separate  tale,  as  if  the  soil  were 
the  destined  mirror  of  the  hand  and  mind  of  man? 
Does  it  need  the  voice  or  finger  of  the  showman  to 
point  out  the  characteristics  of  the  several  occu- 
pants ?  Here  there  is  industry,  there  idleness  ;  here 
again  there  is  hard  labor,  without  skill  or  knowledge ; 
there  you  have  experimental  attempts,  despising 

*  Allotments  are  small  pieces  of  ground  parceled  out  to 
laborers  on  the  farm  by  their  employers,  which  the  laborer 
or  his  family  cultivates  at  leisure  hours,  for  their  own 
benefit — ED. 


"LANDLOKD  AND  TENANT."  147 

established  practice  overmuch,  and  ending  in  fail- 
ure :  here  again  is  toil  overtasked  and  struggling 
against  want  of  means  —  the  spade  without  the 
dung-fork  —  a  hard  and  pitiless  struggle ;  there 
plenty  of  manure-heaps,  but  wastefully  and  unevenly 
applied :  here  again  is  loss  of  time  upon  too  close  a 
minuteness  and  pettiness  of  culture,  there  too  large 
and  daring  a  system,  which  risks  the  whole  space 
upon  a  single  crop.  Every  variety  and  sub-variety 
of  character  is  self-drawn  and  pictured  on  the  soil, 
a  photographic  portrait  of  the  cultivator.  And  so 
it  is  upon  that  great  Allotment-field  —  could  one 
but  as  easily  look  over  it — the  Farms  spread, 
border-to-border,  over  the  various  geological  systems 

of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland. 

•A  *  *  *  & 

To  this  same  wide  Field,  .with  its  many  modes 
of  tillage,  its  various  kinds  of  produce,  and  equally 
varied  character  both  of  occupation  and  of  owner- 
ship, insensibly  flew  the  thoughts  of  the  puzzled 
reader  of  a  certain  budget  of  fourteen  letters,  and 
of  another  about  the  same  in  dimension,  which  the 
following  post  brought  from  the  punctual  Messrs. 
Penn  and  Debbitt. 

Reflection  might  well  be  allowed  to  be  more  long- 
winded,  and  Imagination  itself  to  be  more  fanciful 


14:8  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

than  usual  even  with  the  Chronicler,  when  —  arrived 
at  the  end  of  the  last  of  these  missives  and  the 
questions  they  contained,  as  varied  as  the  Post- 
marks they  bore — he  threw  his  eyes  up  at  a  many- 
colored  Geological  Map  of  the  United  Kingdom, 
hanging  close  beside  him,  and  pictured  to  himself 
the  possibility,  and  the  value,  of  such  a  Map,  with 
its  strong  colors  under-shaded  by  the  "Agricultural 
customs"  that  further  sub-divide  its  geological  out- 
lines. The  curiously  contrasted  interrogatories  sup- 
plied by  the  letters  he  had  waded  through — for 
questions  are  mostly  fertile  in  self-disclosure — 
would  almost  have  furnished  rudely  the  outlines  of 
such  a  Map.  Perhaps,  thought  he,  before  the  cen- 
tury is  out,  the  dream  of  1835  may  become  a  useful 
reality.* 

*  Happily,  tho  terms  "  Landlord  and  Tenant,"  as  hero  used, 
have  little  application  to  the  United  States.  As  a  matter  of 
interest,  this  chapter  may  afford  us  instruction,  but  it  has 
little  application  to  tho  American  farmer. — ED. 


XVI. 

LOW  PRICES  AND  LONG  FACES. 

DAYS  —  weeks  —  months  —  how  you  drift  away  ! 
bearing  the  present  time  with  all  its  clamorous  and 
busy  sounds  of  life,  into  that  long  wake  that 
stretches  far — farther  than  the  eye  can  reach — • 
behind  us!  How  you  float  past  —  boiling  and  tu- 
multuous art  first,  as  just  escaped  from  the  din  and 
turmoil  that  marks  the  everlasting  conflict  of  our 
onward  course — then  gently  and  deceitfully  subsid- 
ing off  with  only  a  rising  ripple  here  and  there,  that 
beckons  to  the  eye  and  tells  of  something  that  will 
be  remembered  —  some  duty  unperformed  —  some 
happiness  perceived  too  late  —  then,  at  last,  sinking 
away  into  the  smooth  surface  that  stretches  far 
behind  in  undistinguishable  outline,  blending  near 
things  and  remote  into  one  great  PAST,  and  leav- 
ing us  to  wonder  at  intensities  of  fear  and  hope, 
of  vanity  and  usefulness,  of  evil  and  of  good,  with 
which  each  moment  as  it  passed  seemed  pregnant. 


150  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

I 

How  wise  we  are,  as  we  look  back !  How  clear- 
sightedly we  discover  each  blunder,  arid  its  cause : 
how  surely  we  believe  that  here  at  least,  and  there 
at  least — forgive  us  this  once,  O  Common  sense 
and  Judgment!  —  and  we  will  promise  never  to  be 
such  fools  again ! 

Did  ever  man  build  a  house  —  or  farm  a  farm  — 
or  even  drain  a  marshy  meadow — and  not  feel 
some  touch  of  this  provoking  after-wisdom  that 
comes  too  late  telling  of  material  and  money 
wasted  —  plans  insufficiently  considered,  too  hastily 
accredited  —  tiles  mislaid,  too  shallow  or  too  deep, 
or  in  the  wrong  direction?  In  the  matter  of  brick- 
and-mortar  such  aftersight  is  grown  a  proverb  ;  and 
is  it  otherwise  in  land?  Let  him  that  has  never 
felt  it,  cast  the  first  stone :  he  has  known  little  of 
Life's  learning  who  has  never  repeated  to  himself 
how  true  it  is  that  Experience  is  never  given, 

but  always  bought; at  the  top  price  of  the 

market  too! 

But  there  is  this  consoling  difference  between 
Bricks  and  Tiles, — that  is  to  say,  between  Building 
and  Farming :  that  whereas  in  the  former  case  you 
always  find  your  cost  in  having  done  too  much, 
proceeded  on  too  large  a  scale — in  the  latter  case 
you  mostly  find,  such  at  least  was  my  discovery — 


LOW   PRICES   AND   LONG   FACES.  151 

that  your  unprofitable  expense  is  forever  peeping 
out  in  the  niggling  nature  of  your  plans  —  field  by 
field,  hedge  by  hedge,  drain  by  drain,  a  tank  here, 
a  cow-house  there  —  you  have  waddled  through  your 
Farm,  denying  your  better  instincts,  resisting  the 
true  economy  which  would  have  prompted  a  com- 
plete and  comprehensive  plan  that  looks  the  whole 
matter  in  the  face  at  once ;  as  though  a  man  should 
build  a  mansion,  room  by  room,  and  paint  and  fur- 
nish and  roof  them  in,  one  by  one,  solemnly  count- 
ing the  cost  all  the  way,  and  shutting  his  eyes  to  the 
conviction  that  the  next  room — and  the  next  story, 
must  come  at  last, —  and  that  one  roof,  one  plan,  one 
outlay,  the  cheapest  because  the  most  compendious, 
might  have  covered  all,  and  saved  the  worry  and 
mortification  of  jobs  wwdone,  arrangements  altered, 
and  blunders  deplored. 

Architects  are  expensive  things  it  is  true  —  but 
still  the  comprehensive  plan  is  the  cheapest  in  the 
end.  "We  want  Farm- Architects.  Not  (Heaven 
help  us ! )  that  we  want  more  expense  in  farming,  or 
in  farm  buildings,  but  a  kind  of  knowledge  in  the 
whole  laying  out  of  a  farm,  analogous  to  that  of  the 
architect  who  plans  a  building.  The  Landlord,  the 
Tenant,  the  Bricklayer,  the  Carpenter,  the  "Workmen, 
and  last  not  least,  the  gaping  Neighbor — each  has 


152  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

his  opinion,  and  gives  it  freely  enough.  The  result 
is  generally  a  mongrel  compromise  between  them 
all.  No  one  voice  —  no  one  plan  is  predominant, 
and  by  the  time  the  whole  outlay  is  expended,  the 
job  is  half  a  job,  and  the  ship  is  spoilt  for  a  ha'p'orth 
of  tar  and  an  ounce  of  oakum.  The  extreme  of  cold, 
as  well  as  the  extreme  of  heat,  will  leave  a  blister 
on  the  fingers.* 

Five  months  F  iged  away  —  and  the  glorious 

spring  of  that'  |en  hundred  and  thirty  odd, 
afore  dated  with  sucli  ^difying  minuteness,  and  now 
hanging  up  like  a  cobweb  in  some  neglected  passage 

*  This  could  not  be  better  said  —  at  least  to  such  as  have 
/he  requisite  amount  of  capital  to  make  a  farm  what  it  should 
be  at  the  commencement.  Such,  however,  is  seldom  the  case 
with  the  farmer  of  this  country.  The  want  of  capital  to  be- 
gin with  is  their  first  misfortune,  and,  becoming  accustomed 
to  it,  this  deficiency  is  too  apt  to  follow  them  through  life. 
If  the  farmer  become  ultimately  successful,  long-continued 
habit  makes  him  penurious  in  all  that  relates  to  permanent 
outlay  upon  his  farm,  and  ho  is  quite  too  prone  to  invest  his 
surplus  savings  in  objects  foreign,  if  not  antagonist  to  his 
legitimate  occupation,  rather  than  to  sink  them,  as  he  con- 
eiders  it,  in  permanent  improvements  to  his  estate,  because 
their  immediate  effect  is  not  apparent.  The  increased  value 
of  land  amid  a  dense  population,  and  an  enlightened  system 
of  cultivation,  may,  after  a  time,  cure  the  difficulty. — ED. 


LOW   PRICES   AND   LONG   FACES.  153 

of  this  Chronicle  —  had  fallen  into  something  more 
than  summer  —  since  the  Wetlandshire  Mercury 
had  typified  to  the  world  at  large  that  a  certain 

farm  was  to  be  let,  at  a  certain  time.     "Fourteen" 

« 
applications  by  the  first  post,  duly  forwarded  by  the 

prompt  firm  of  Penn  and  Debbitt — (and  how  many 
more  by  the  next  —  and  the  next  —  what  boots  it  to 
particularize?)  had  been  forwarded  in  vain.  For  a 
Wight  had  fallen  —  the  strangest  of  blights!  —  the 
blight  of  Plenty,  over  the  sons  of  the  soil,  and  be- 
fore September  had  crisped  the  morning  air,  and 
the  partridge-chick  had  found  cool  midday  covert 
under  the  young  turnip-leaf,  every  country  journal 
had  its  broad  page  of  "Sales  of  Farming-stock"  set 
'in  types  in  which  he  who  ran  might  read  —  some- 
thing more  than  met  the  eye. 

"Fallen    upon    bad    times!  —  all    up    with 

farming,  I  doubt,  Sir!"  said  a  muffled  voice,  out 
of  a  red-striped  neck-warmer — joggingly — for  the 
utterer  of  the  sentiment  was  on  a  rough  nag,  not  a 
"good'un  to  look  at,"  but  he  went — as  an  old  clock 
does,  by  habit  —  with  an  ash  stick  steadily  going, 
for  pendulum,  on  one  side,  and  a  spur,  peeping 
under  the  left  gaiter,  and  steadily  going  too,  on  the 
other,  for  regulator. 

"All  up  with  farming,  I  doubt!" 

7* 


154  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FAEM. 

And  the  speaker  threw  an  eye  sideways  to  one 
who  rode  on  his  left,  as  he  repeated  the  last 
words  —  an  eye  most  expressive  —  for  with  the  good 

natured  "crow's  foot"  that  nestled  close  up  to  it  and 

* 

seemed  to  tell  of  home-feelings  and  fire-side  memo- 
ries, there  was  a  momentary  wrinkle,  a  peep  of 
something  well  accustomed  to  concealment,  that 
glanced  out  for  an  instant — telegraphing  (how 
rapidly!)  a  half  century's  experience  of  the  words, 
"FROM  THE  SWEAT  OF  THY  BROW  SHALT  THOU  EAT 
BREAD."  Yet  not  complainingly :  too  truthfully 
and  heart-whole  for  that. 

No  answer  came.  The  ash  stick  went  on  stead- 
ily :  and  the  spur ;  for  the  tail  performed  the  part 
of  index — a  true  toll-tail,  swishing  and  signalizing 
toward  each  application  of  the  blunt  rowel  upon  the 
same  spot,  grown  horny  and  resistful  under  its  influ- 
ence. The  mouth  that  had  spoken  dropped  into  the 
neck-warmer  again  —  and  the  kind  but  care-full  eye 
looked  straight  forward,  with  its  fellow,  into  the  early 
morning  fog  that  lay  upon  the  roads  and  fields,  and 
dripped  upon  the  hedges,  where  the  gossamer  had 
hung  its  tiny  tissues,  waiting  patiently  for  Sunrise. 
Click,  click,  click,  click,  went  the  aggravating  oft- 
side  hind-shoe,  for  half  a  mile  nearly,  before  another 
word  was  spoken. 


LOW   PEICES   AND    LONG  FACES.  155 

"Any  chance  of  its  rising  again,  d'ye  think, 
Sir?" 

Still  no  answer.  The  question  could  not  have  ap- 
plied to  the  Sun.  for  his  great,  red,  merry  counte- 
nance was  already  beginning  to  peep,  enormously 

big,  over hill,  like  some  welcome-faced  friend, 

half  behind  the  door,  glowing  with  the  knowledge 
how  the  heart  of  him,  or  her,  who  sits  within  will 
rush  presently  to  tear  away  the  screen  that  separates 
them.  It  could  not  be  the  Sun :  for  he  is  half  up 
now,  and  yet  no  answer  from  that  thoughtful-look- 
ing Quixote,  that  sits  his  mare  as  if  he  was  riding 
in  a  dream,  #nd  had  lost  the  power  of  utterance. 
It  was  strange,  too ;  for  he  had  been  no*  moody 
companion  from  the  time  farmer  Greening's  trotting 
nag  overtook  him  on  the  road  :  and  if  he  had  been, 
Mr.  Greening  wasn't  the  man  to  have  hailed  him  in 
the  merry  way  he  did,  and  especially  in  such  times : 
he  would  have  gone  by  with  the  respectful,  and  self- 
respectful,  morning  salute  of  one  who  never  in- 
truded, nor  retreated,  on  life's  highway,  in  the 
matter  of  companionship.  But  that  question  — 
what  was  there  in  it  that  had  stopped  the  way- 
cheer  of  discourse,  and  set  one  of  the  parties 
thinking  like  an  oracle?  It  was  lucky  that  his  mare 
happened  to  make  a  false  step  as  he  turned  her  from 


156  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FAKH. 

the  footpath  where  she  had  been  nursing  her  hoofs, 
for  it  made  him  wake  up,  and  say,  "I'm  not  sure, 
Greening,  that  I  can  answer  your  question,  but  I 
can  tell  you  how  I  answered  one  of  the  same  sort  a 
fortnight  ago,  to  a  man  who  came  to  look  at  my 
vacant  farm." 

« Oh !  I  heerd  of  it,  Sir,  I  heerd  of  it!  They  was 
telling  of  it  the  other  night  at  Bogmoor :  and  did  n't 
tell  it  bad  either :  old  Dobson  said  the  West-country 
gentleman  stood  up  to  his  full  height,  (and  he  was  n't 
a  short  un  either,)  and  says  he,  'Pray,  sir,  how 
many  bushels  of  Wheat  will  this  farm  grow  to  the 
acre?'  pompous -like ;  and  says  you,  drawing  up 
queerljs,  (and,  beg  pardon,  you  ain't  a  very  tall  un,) 
and  looking  calcylating  and  confidential-like,  'From 
fifteen  bushels  to  fifty,'  says  you;  and  we  all 
laughed,  for  we  knew  your  look  :  and  I  know'd  how 
you'd  say  it,  and  what  you  meant,  pretty  well. 
Yes,  yes !  I  heerd  o'  that.  He  did  n't  like  it,  how- 
ever. I  think  if  you'd  'a'  said  thirty  he'd  'a'  had 
the  farm." 

"No!" 

"Not?  Well,  I  don't  know.  Dobson  said  he 
seemecl  smartish  like,  and  he  didn't  mislike  the 
look  o'  the  stubbles,  nor  the  rick-yard  neither. 
What  did  he  say  to  your  crop  o'  Swedes  in  the 


LOW   PRICES   AND    LONG  FACES.  157 

forty-acre  piece,  the  Brickfield-close  I  think  you  call 
it?    Didn't  he  think  them  big  enough?" 

"He  didn't  tell  me:  he  couldn't,  indeed  :  for  he 
only  looked  over  the  hedge  at  tfiem,  saying  that  'it 
wasn't  a  Turnip  farm.'  As  he  spoke  to  himself 
rather  than  to  me,  I  didn't  gainsay  him.  But  as  it 
takes  me  a  long  time  to  say  any  thing  smart,  I 
accepted  that  as  a  notice,  and  prepared  my  answer 
for  what  I  foresaw  was  coming  when  we  had  done 
riding  through  the  stubbles :  and  as  I  think  his 
hoofs  were  on  every  acre  of  them,  I  had  time 
enough  for  preparation." 

A  short  silence  ensued.  The  Ash-stick  and  the 
spur  seemed  to  work  less  emphatically.  The  horses 
dropped  into  a  walk :  they  were  nearing  the  town 

of ,  which  began  to  loom  through  the  morning 

mist.      The   approaching    termination  of   the   ride 
seemed  to  bring  the  two  saddles  closer  together. 

"  I  think  I  know  what  you  mean.  I  had  an  ink- 
ling of  it  before,  when  I  heard  the  story  from  old 
Dobson;  but  I  see  it  plainer-like  now,  after  what 
you've  said.  Tou  likes  a  man  as  thinks  of  grace 
before  meat"  said  Mr.  Greening  in  a  sort  of  under 
tone,  and  looking  up  into  the  face  of  the  other,  sig- 
nificantly, and  with  an  expression  of  half  inquiry. 

"You've  described  it  more   shortly  and  better 


158  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FA1OI. 

than  I  could  Lave  done ;  you've  hit  the  nail  on  the 

very  head,"  said  the  other. "I  don't  know  how 

it  is,  Greening,  but  these  dark  misty  mornings  bring 
some  thoughts  into  my  mind  that  I  hardly  know 
how  to  tell  exactly  as  I  feel  them.  But  this  I 
know,  that  some  of  the  thoughts  they  bring  make 
me  shrink  from  the  very  sight  of  a  man  that  looks 
at  nothing  but  the  Wheat  stubbles.  I'd  as  soon 
ride  this  mare  straight  into  the  knacker's  yard  " 

"Lor'bleshye,  Sir!" 

"Well  —  you  understand  me;  it's  but  a  young 
one,  certainly,  for  that  last  journey ;  but  I  should 
feel  less  sin  or  shame  in  that,  than  in  letting  a  farm 
to  a  man  who  looks  at  the  stubbles  first,  and  the 
Turnip-fields  afterward,  or  not  at  all.  The  knacker 
has  an  eye  for  a  horse  " 

— "  For  the  dogs  "— 

"  Exactly !  and  so  have  some  men  for  a  farm.  It 
does  seem  to  me  strange  that  all  these  pamphlet- 
writers  and  law-makers  should  have  omitted  this  — 
but  I  forgot  —  I  am  afraid  you  and  I  are  not  quite 
on  the  same  bench  in  that  question." 

"  Ah !  do  n't  'e  say  so !  I  should  like,  uncommon, 
to  have  a  bit  of  a  talk  with  you,  though,  about  that* 
It  beats  me  entirely  when  I  hear  tell  that  you 
ar'n't that  you  go  with  them  there  Free-tra — " 


LOW   PRICES   AND    LONG   FACES.  159 

"  Take  care !  take  care ! "  said  the  other,  turning 
quickly  in  his  saddle,  as  the  fore-horse  of  a  wagon- 
team  turned  suddenly  at  full  trot  down  hill  from  a 
side  lane,  into  the  high-road,  grazing  Mr.  Greening's 
unspurred  foot  with  the  point  of  the  leader's  stretcher, 
and  bringing  the  whole  team,  and  the  wagon  after 
them  rumbling  round  the  corner,  a  very  near  shave 
and  at  the  imminent  risk  of  spilling  a  sack  or  two 
of  Wheat  that  lay  not  very  safely  on  the  near-side 
shel'-board. 

"Ay!  there  ye  go,"  said  Mr.  Greening,  rather 
angrily,  as  his  hot  and  rough-coated  nag  jumped 
with  some  alacrity  against  the  pathway  out  of  reach 
of  the  wheels,  pressing  the  other  rider  pretty  close 
to  the  ditch,  as  the  wagon  passed  on  before  them  — 
"  there  you  go,  Mr.  Cropfield,  with  your  new  wheat 
and  your  Straw  again !  I  wonder  how  many  sacks 
to  the  acre  you've  grown  upon  last  year's  Oat- 
stubble  this  time!  Do  look  at  the  boultings,  Sir! 
That's  for  litter  for  the  team  I  suppose!  He's 
late  to  market  with  that  load ;  no  wonder  the' 
go  so  fast.  "Well,  if  it  ain't  enough  to  make  an 
honest  head  ache  to  see  that ! "  added  the  indignant 
farmer,  in  a  tone  of  unusual  sarcasm.  "That's 
what  I  call  taking  the  new-laid  eggs  to  market,  and 
the  hen  along? 


160  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FABM. 

"Wheat  on  an  Oat-stubble ! He  brings  back 

manure,  I  suppose ! " 

"  Ay,  for  the  Barley-crop ;  or  Oats  again,  may 
be  :  it 's  all  the  same  :  he  counts  laoTc'ards ;  he 
begins  with  the  grain,  and  ends  with  —  no  he  never 
comes  to  the  green.  He  says  stems  pay  quicker 
than  roots /  and  Stock 's  expensive  ;  so  he  starts  at 
once  with  the  high  figures  —  though,  my  life!  'tis 
but  a  low  'un  now,  for  that  matter.  Do  you  think, 
Sir,  it  '11  ever  get  up  again  ? " 

"The  old  question  again!  I'm  afraid,  Greening, 
you  'd  never  hear  out  the  answer,  even  if  I  could 
give  it.  Sharp  questioners  are  impatient  listeners." 

"  Oh !  trust  me  for  that :  if  you  'd  spare  me  the 
val'e  of  a  half-hour's  walk  through  those  Swedes 
again,  (I  should  like  to  see  how  the  dibbed  ones  get 
on,)  I  think  I  can  take  all  you'll  give,  and  ask -for 
more  after." 

"  Oh,  you  are  most  welcome  to  see  the  Swedes : 
you'll  come  round  to  the  dibbing,  depend  on  it,  and 
when  we  've  done  there  " — 

"I  shall  come  round  to  something  else!  Ah! 
that's  capital!  No,  no,  no!"  said  Mr.  Greening, 
laughing  and  suddenly  bending  his  pony's  shaggy 
neck  with  a  jerk  of  both  reins  toward  the  street 
that  led  into  the  cattle  fair,  for  they  had  reached 


LOW  PRICES   AND    LONG   FACES.  161 

the  town,  and  the  turn  bronght  the  colloquy  to  an 
end.  "Well,  I  shall  keep  to  your  promise,  Sir, 
howsomever.  Please  to  look  out  for  a  trespasser 
on  Monday  morning!  you'll  be  most  likely  to  catch 
me  early.  I  haven't  forgot  your  words  last  autumn 
about  the  matty  —  what  was  it — the  mattytynial 
hours." 

"You'll   be  my  fast  prisoner  to  luncheon-time. 

Well,  good  day,  Greening,  and  a  good  fair!" 

Ah!  those  "matutinal  hours!"  I  repeated  to  myself, 
as  Mr.  Greening's  good-natured  face  nodded  away, 
and  the  ash  stick  and  the  well-worn  spur,  and  the 
click,  click,  click,  of  the  hind  hoof  were  lost  up  the 
street  toward  which  Nelly  swerved  sympathetically 
for  a  pace  or  two  before  she  swung  again  into 
her  usual  trot,  and  forgot  her  little  rough-coated 
companion.* 

*  Our  author  gives    utterance  to   a  well-merited  rebuke 
upon  the  continued  cropping  system  without  the  intervention 
of  turnip  and  grass  culture,  and  stock  feeding,  so  necessary 
to  maintain  good  land,  and  of  consequence  good  husbandry, 
in  England.     His  remarks  are  equally  applicable  to  America, 
so  far  as  rotations  of  grass  and  its  consumption  by  neat  cattle,*t 
and  sheep  are  concerned.     Our  dry  and  hot  summer  climate  .:' 
is  not  so  favorable   to  turnip  culture  as  that  of  Britain* ,.  ^ 
and  happily  that  most  valuable  grain,  the  Indian  Corn,  so 


102  CHRONICLES    OF   A   CLAY   FAKM. 

easily  grown,  with  us,  supersedes  its  necessity.  Yot,  tho 
appropriation  of  a  part  of  oven  tho  best  grain  lands  on 
tho  farm,  to  grass,  is  necessary,  not  only  to  preserve  the 
fertility  of  tho  soil,  but  to  maintain  a  well-balanced  course 
of  cultivation. — ED. 


XVII. 

A  "MATUTINAL  HOUR." 

IT  requires  no  small  experience  of  life,  to  fully 
realize  the  often  heard  and  often  repeated  truth, 
that  "every  thing  goes  by  comparison."  When  the 
philosopher  tells  us  that  we  only  know  the  true 
value  of  a  thing  by  the  want  of  it,  he  merely 
reasserts  this  fact.  We  judge  only  by  the  light  of 
contrast.  A  man  who  has  lived  all  his  life  in 
England  has  no  adequate  conception  of  the  English 
climate.  Including  with  it  that  of  Scotland  and 
Ireland,  it  stands  alone  in  the  world  —  in  that  part 
of  it  at  least  which  most  travelers  visit — the  Con- 
tinental world.  Its  sudden  smiles  and  sudden  tears 
are  something  truly  hysterical.  Like  some  fair 
maiden  who  weeps  she  knows  not  why  —  then  stops 
and  smiles  a  bit — a  fickle  smile  —  then  falls  to 
weeping  again ;  there  is  no  knowing  when  or  where 
or  how,  to  be  up  to  her  moods.  She  is  the  very  April 
among  nations.  The  Barometer,  a  tolerably  steady- 
going  guide  elsewhere,  she  turns  into  a  perfect 


164:  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

laughing-stock.  Fourteen  times  out  of  fifteen,  if  is 
said,  she  makes  him  play  the  fool.  He  is  like  an 
old  Pointer — always  making  a  dead  set  at  a  dead 
scent,  or — at  nothing;  —  a  disap-pointer,  indicating 
that  which  was  —  and  is  no  longer. 

Is  it  a  vice  or  a  virtue?  It  does  not  come  for 
nothing.  It  has  its  meaning.  It  is  not  sent  "  pro- 
miscuous-like  "  to  worry  and  perplex  "  us  fools  of 
Nature,"  for  no  object  or  intent.  In  her  trickiest 
and  wildest  and  most  fantastic  frolics,  Nature  is 
full  of  soul,  full  of  deepest,  and  aye !  of  most  loving 
purpose,  manward.  Under  hotter  skies,  where  the 
flesh  of  beasts  is  not  so  much  a  food  as  an  un- 
healthy stimulant  to  the  blood,  and  where  the  cool, 
vegetable  and  farinaceous  diet  are  all  that  man's 
strength  or  warmth  or  appetite  requires,  "  cats  and 
dogs"  indeed  do  sometimes  come  rattling  down  for 
days  together  ;  but  they  come  in  a  pack,  full  cry  : 
or  in  equally  expressive  Indian  phrase,  it  pours 
"  monkeys  with  their  mouths  open  "  when  it  pours 
at  all.  But  the  gentle  English  sky  alone  "rains 
Turnips  :  "  and  English  Legs  o'  mutton,  and  "  Eng- 
lish Roast-beef,"  were  assuredly  concealed  behind  the 
vail  of  centuries,  when  the  first  daring  mariner,  as 
old  Herodotus  tells  us,  was  scared  back  by  the  "  Fog 
and  falling  feathers "  from  the  sacred  coast  of 


A  "MATUTINAL  HOTJE."  165 

Albion.  Far  away  in  the  thirsty  regions  of  the 
South,  as  sun  rolled  after  sun,  in  dry  and  blazing 
sameness  through  the  sky>  unscreened  by  the  mercy 
of  a  single  cloud,  I  have  gasped  and  pined  for  an 
English  wetting  —  for  one  day  in  the  most  dripping 
covert  —  for  the  murkiest  downpour  —  for  the  dark- 
est clouds  that  ever  gathered  in  gloomy  council 
over  a  November's  day  —  till  the  very  memory  of 
it  seemed  like  a  dream  too  delightful  to  have  been 
ever  true !  And  often  since,  when  the  very 
drainers  —  (and  they  stand  the  waters  from  above 
the  firmament,  and  under  it,  pretty  well)  —  have 
cast  up  furtive  eyes  out  of  their  soaking  trenches  to 
see  'if  "  the  master  budged,"  giving  sundry  hints 
that  "it's  a'most  time  to  give  in"  I've  stood  my 
ground  for  hours  against  the  welcome  fog  and 
shower  and  darkness,  from  the  sheer  inward  force 
of  well-remembered  contrast,  determined  to  have  it 
out  with  Nature,  and  come  to  a  final  arrangement  — 
a  sort  of  water-level  with  her,  for  having  been 
cheated  out  of  two  or  three  English  winters.  And 
I  sometimes  think  she  has  whispered  me  a  secret, 
in  return,  about  those  dark  and  mis-abused  Novem- 
ber days  —  as  she  is  prone  to  do  to  those  who 
persevere  with  her  —  which  have  made  me  prize 
her,  and  them,  and  the  land  they  love  and  lave,  the 


166  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FAKM. 

better ;  and  feel  that  there  is  a  rough  poetry  and 
truth  in  its  iron-gray  mists  and  showers,  which 
have  made  true  of  the  Farmer  what  was  said  of  the 
good  and  brave  man  under  life's  trials  :  — 

"  lie  does  not  run  all  helter-skelter 
To  sock  a  temporary  shelter ; 
Nor  does  ho  fume  and  fret  and  foam 
Because  he 's  distant  far  from  home ; 
For  well  ho  knows,  each  trouble  past, 
He 's  sure  to  find  a  HOME  —  at  last ! " 

It  was  to  some  such  inward  thought  I  was  in- 
debted—  and  as  a  faithful  chronicler  I  ought  to  tell 
it — for  the  courage  with  which,  after  tossing  oif  the 
blankets  an  hour  earlier  than  usual,  I  threw  my 
window  open  to  —  such  a  Monday  morning!  pre- 
falsified  by  the  brightest  stars  and  clearest  sky  that 
ever  closed  the  day  of  Christian  Rest. 

One  universal,  soaking  drizzle  seemed  to  have 
taken  secure  possession  of  earth,  sky,  and  the  day. 
The  small  rain  gathering  on  the  trees  dripped  larger 
from  leaf  to  leaf,  falling  in  the  most  hopeless  and 
measured  way,  taking  it  easy  as  though  for  a  week's 
continuance,  and  no  hurry  at  all  about  the  matter. 
A  single  red  streak,  much  too  red,  lay  along  one 
part  of  the  horizon,  like  a  long-drawn  smile,  preg- 
nant with  malicious  warning  for  the  afternoon,  and 


A  "MATUTINAL  HOUR."  167 

killing  the  faint  hope  that  clings  to  "twelve  o'clock" 
as  an  alternative. 

Now  for  my  promised  trespasser  among  the 
Swedes!  No  need  for  man-traps  to-day  in  that 
quarter,  thought  I,  preparing  to  meet  the  foe,  with  a 
pair  of  gaiters  that  seemed  made  for  the  Slough  of 
Despond.  The  turf-ground  weezed  and  yielded 
under  every  footstep,  plainly  dating  back  the  rain  to 
an  early  hour  of  the  night,  as  I  made  my  way  to 
the  field ;  and  as  my  eye  scanned  its  whole  space 
over,  the  victory  of  the  "  early  bird "  seemed  as- 
sured —  when  suddenly  close  to  me,  from  the  other 
side  of  the  hedge,  just  where  the  master-drain 
opened  out,  came  a  ringing  "  Good  morning,  Sir," 
into  my  very  ear,  and  Mr.  Greening,  rising  from  the 
bent  posture  in  which  he  had  been  scrutinizing  the 
Drain,  looked  with  mischievous  unconcernment  the 
victory  he  had  promised,  and  accomplished. 

"Not  deep  enough ! "  quoth  he  ;  laconically. 

"  Which?" 

"  Oh  T—  the  Drain  —  not  you  ;  and  as  for  me,  I 
was  deep  enough !  You  thought  the  drop  o'  rain 
had  stopped  me  :  no,  no !  I  like  a  rainy  day,  to  see 
this  sort  o'  land.  These  are  laid  at  three  foot ! 
Four's  better! 

"You  really  think  so?" 


168  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

"  I  'm  sure  of  it.  But  I  thought  you  was  all  for 
the  deep  drain?  I  heerd  so,  long  afore  I  tried  it." 

"  And  that 's  why  these  were  laid  at  three.  This 
lower  part,  up  to  yonder  oak  tree,  is  the  first  field  1 
drained  :  and  if  you  had  seen  the  work  I  had,  to 
get  down  three  feet " 

"  Oh !  ay,  ay  !  I  remember  now  you  mention  it. 
Well,  I  like  the  four-foot.  But  not  too  wide, 
mind  !  I  '11  allow  any  man  to  tell  me  how  deep  to 
drain,  if  he  '11  leave  me,  on  my  own  sile,  to  say  the 
width.  It 's  a  pity  to  spare  a  line  or  two  of  tiles,  to 
run  a  risk." 

"Well :  this  is  three  feet,  by  twenty-one  in  width : 
down  the  old  furrows,  in  fact.  And  the  worst  of  it 
is,  it  drains  extremely  well." 

" '  The  best,'  you  mean  ? " 

"  The  worst !  —  The  good  done  by  the  shallow 
drain  has  been,  in  practice,  the  longest  enemy  of  the 
deep  one.  A  man  who  finds  his  field  improved  by 
the  shallow  drain,  holds  that  as  a  fact.  When  you 
tell  him  that  double  the  depth  would  have"  more 
than  doubled  the  improvement,  he  treats  that  as  a 
-  a  theory.  A  DREADFUL  thing,  that  Theory !  I 
wonder  how  many  who  use  the  word  —  ab-use  it 
rather  —  know  the  meaning  of  it.  But  what  say 
you  to  the  dibbing?" 


A  "MATUTINAL  HOUE."  169 

"  "Well,  they  're  very  reglar  :  hardly  one  missed. 
But  I  do  n't  like  to  see  'em  quite  so  high  out  of  the 
ground.  I  fancy  it  makes  a  tough  skin,  and  a  bitter 
one.  The  drilled  uns  do  n't  look  so  reglar,  but  they 
seem  to  hold  the  ground  better.  How's  it  done?" 

"  By  the  acre ;  after  the  first  ridging-up,  un- 
manured  ;  a  boy  goes  first,  pressing  the  dib  in  with 
his  foot.  You  shall  see  it  presently ;  it  is  held  by 
both  hands  at  the  top,  with  a  spoke  out  for  the  foot, 
just  above  the  ball  of  the  dibber,  to  mark  the  next 
distance  as  its  point  meets  the  ground,  in  drawing  it 
out,  sideways,  in  going  along.  The  hole  takes  about 
a  half-pint  —  more  it  should  be.  The  women  follow 
with  the  manure  in  a  sort  of  hopper,  toss  a  can- 
full  in,  which  fills  the  hole,  and  drop  the  seed  in. 
It  is  done  very  quickly  ;  but  the  mixing  of  the 
manure  is  the  great  point.  You  must  come  and 
see  it  done." 

"  I  should  like  it  better  for  light  soils.  I  doubt 
its  answering  so  well  on  this  kind,"  said  Mr.  Green- 
ing, thoughtfully,  and  poking  his  stout  stick  under  a 
turnip  which  rose  very  slowly  and  reluctantly  out 
of  its  bed.  "  "What  is  to  be  done,  Sir,  with  these 
Clay  Siles !  —  I  like  'em  —  I  own  I  like  the  strong 
sile  best  —  but  what 's  the  use  o'  liking  what  do  n't 
pay  ?  The  labor 's  double  :  every  thing 's  double 


170  CHKONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

expense  on  'em,  and  the  time  less  to  do  it  in  :  for 
drain  'em  how  you  will,  you  can  not  make  winter 
work  on  'em,  as  you  can  upon  the  light.  Now 
do  n't  you  confess  that  ? " 

"  Ah  :  thereby  hangs  a  long  tale !  Chemistry  on 
the  Light  soils  —  Mechanics  on  the  Clays !  "When 
will  that  great '  Chapter  the  Second '  begin  to  open  ? 
"We  haven't  quite  found  out  every  thing  yet,  Green- 
ing! There's  something  to  come,  I  suspect,  upon 
the  Clays,  that  will  startle  you  and  me — wise  as  we 
are  —  some  day.  'A  thing  to  dream  of — not  to 
tell.'  But  come  —  you  must  put  the  Beans,  mean- 
while, against  the  Barley" 

"  "Well,  that 's  true  :  but  that  won't  match  it,  I  'm 
afeared  ;  not  by  a  great  deal.  Here's  Wheat  now 
down  at  five-and-thirty !  Egad,  I  can't  give  it  away! 
and  I  remember  my  poor  old  father  —  and  that's 
five-and-twenty  year  ago  in  the  war-time,  as  the 
bushel  o'  "Wheat  dropped  into  the  sack,  saying  to 
me, ' There's  a  guinea,  Ben!'  and  'There's  another' 
as  the  next  fell  in  ;  and  so  it  went  on.  That  was 
fanning,  that  was!  I'm  blest  if  I  don't  think 
they  got  their  own  price,  and  ours  along!" 

"  You  've  hit  the  very  truth,  I  do  believe :  they 
forgot  to  take  their  share  of  the  per  contra, 
when  the  war  was  over.  They  made  A  WILL, 


A  "MATUTINAL  noun."  171 

bequeathing  that  to  us ;  for  that,  I  imagine,  will  be 
the  end  of  it." 

"  What 's  the  use  of  making  a  "Will,  when  you  've 
nothing  to  leave  ?  They  should  have  left  us  another 
war,  and  short  harvests ;  that  'ould  have  done  better 
than  any  laws,  I  fancy,  to  keep  up  prices." 

"  Postponed  the  change,  perhaps  ;  not  prevented 
it :  it  was  inevitable  some  day.  The  fairer  course 
would  have  been  to  have  accepted  it  when  it  fell 
due,  and  begun  afresh,  with  some  of  those  guineas 
in  hand  that  you  speak  of." 

"  "Well :  it  has  been  but  a  crumbling  wall  for 
twenty  years,  ever  since  the  "War  ended,  with  now 
and  then  a  bit  of  a  check,  in  spite  of  all  the  laws  to 
prevent  it :  and  these  three  fair  harvests  have  laid 
us  now  as  flat  as  we  could  lie,  if  the  worst  had  come 
to  the  worst." 

"  It  seems  then  that  to  inherit  a  falling  market  is 
worse  than  to  be  born  into  a  low  one.  You  're  but 
right.  The  latter  admits  of  hope ;  the  other  is  con- 
tinued mis-calculation,  and  disappointment: — and 
something  worse  than  either." 

"And  what's  that?" 

"  I  won't  tell  you  till  after  breakfast !  Come,  you 
old  Grumbler,  it's  the  driest  subject  in  Creation, 
and  will  take  you  three  cups  of  hot  coffee  to  get  it 


172  CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY  FARM. 

down.  You  shan't  come  into  my  Sanctum  with 
those  boots  —  boots  !  why,  they  're  like  barges,  sunk 
to  water's-edge !  You  bring  to  mind  a  certain 
Mr.  Demos  whom  the  witty  comedian  of  Athens 
tells  of : 

'  'T  was  asked  through  all  the  quarter, 

Camo  you  in  Boots,  sir,  or  in  Boats  — 
By  Land,  sir,  or  by  Water  ? ' 

oif  with  'em !  they  shall  be  cooked,  under  the  mut- 
ton-chops, and  come  in  again  with  the  muffins! 
You  're  in  close  custody ;  so  peel  off  that  patrimonial 
looking  great-coat,  and  send  it  after  the  boots. 
Why — it 's  as  heavy  as — those  same  guineas !  I  '11 
be  bound  the  lining 's  stuffed  with  'em ! "  [Mr.  Gr. 
eyed  it  over,  and  shook  his  head,  smiling  gro- 
tesquely.] ""Well!  come  along  —  you  shall  abuse 
Foreigners  and  Free-traders  over  the  first  two 
cups,  and  we  '11  drink  '  Better  prices  for  '36 ! '  over 
the  third." 


XVIII. 

"TALP A"  LOQUITUR. 

AMONG  the  various  experiences  which  the  much 
more  social  Agriculture  of  the  last  twenty  years  has 
brought,  (for  a  great  change  has  come  over  us  in 
that  particular  since  —  well  —  nevermind  how  long 
ago  I  was  going  to  say — )  there  is  none  which  has 
struck  me  more  than  that  part  of  its  philosophy 
which  consists  in  the  operation  of  mind  upon  mind. 
That  of  "min<}  upon  matter"  is  not  a  very  new 
subject :  we  see  it  every  day — and  hear  of  it  too, 
till  it  is  something  tiresome :  just  now  we  are  on  a 
different  theme,  and  a  less  trodden  :  "  mind  upon 
mind "  is  our  point  at  present,  and  perhaps  the 
more  important  of  the  two,  after  all.  I  was  going 
to  say  that  in  a  pretty  long  and  intimate  experience 
of  a  rather  curious  soil  to  deal  with,  and  to  which 
never  did  man,  horse,  or  implement,  deny  the  epi- 
thet "  stiff," —  I  too,  like  them,  have  had  my  own 


174:  CEKONICLES    OF   A  CLAY   FARM. 

dumb  reflections,  and  not  the  least  emphatic  of 
these  have  grown  out  of  the  every  day  phenomena 
of  mind  acting  upon  mind.  You  tell  a  man  some- 
thing, to-day,  or  express  an  opinion,  or  assert  a 
fact,  about  a  thing  which  he  has  perhaps  never 
noticed  or  never  heard,  before ;  he  smiles,  starts, 
shakes  his  head,  or  delivers  himself  in  some  other 
way,  for  the  ways  are  various  in  which  men  "  be- 
have "  (as  the  chemists  call  it)  under  the  infiltration 
of  a  new  idea.  "Whatever  the  mode  may  be,  one 
thing  you  may  be  sure  of,  that  in  the  grunt,  the 
smile,  the  laugh  perhaps,  in  fact  whatever  it  may  be 
that  meets  you,  the  attitude  of  mind  betokened  is 
that  of — dissent.  I  am  far  from  complaining  of  it : 
some  of  my  best  hands  have  given  me  infinitely  the 
most  mental  graveling  in  this  respect.  But  what  I 
do  complain  of,  and  want  to  know  where  to  apply 
for  remedy,  (since  the  Law  tells  us  that  for  every 
"Wrong  there  lies  one) — is  that  these  same  hard- 
headed  fellows,  workmen,  neighbors,  friends,  kind 
advisers,  or  whatever  other  relation  they  may  hold  — 
six,  twelve  or  eighteen  months  afterward,  coolly  come 
to  me,  and  with  all  that  air  of  profound  thought  that 
becomes  a  man  of  reflective  character,  down-calving 
as  one  may  say  with  something  intensely  wise,  an- 
nounce to  me  in  new  language  of  their  own,  the 


"TALPA"  LOQUITUK.  175 

very  thing  which  I  at  such  time  suffered  a  small 
martyrdom  in  the  vain  endeavor  to  urge  upon  them. 
I  know  not  whether  other  "  employers  of  labor " 
have  felt  this  sort  of  paulo  post  experience  as  I  have 
done.  But  I  suspect  so  ;  for  every  man  is  (and  it  is 
comforting  to  think  so)  only  the  unit  of  a  class.  It 
is  difficult  to  study  for  successive  years  the  charac- 
ter of  a  soil,  without  learning  something  of  the 
character  of  those  employed  upon,  aye  and  even  of 
those  who  visit,  it.  And  this  has  been  my  especial 
grievance,  and  one  which  Time,  the  "smooth-handed 
god,"  has  increased,  not  lightened.  People  who  de- 
rided my  "  improvements,"  laughed  at  my  "  deep  " 
drains,  bewept  my  grubbed-up  ash-stumps,  mourned 
over  my  obliterated  hedgerows,  turned  up  noses  at 
my  Tank,  listened  with  mock  gravity  to  my  •"  mys- 
terious "  remarks  about  the  "  economy  of  warmth  " 
as  cheaper  than  the  "equivalent  in  food" — and  a 
great  many  other  things  that  it  would  take  an  in- 
ventory to  tell  —  do  now  come  and  preach  to  me 
my  own  poor  antiquated  texts,  that  I  should  really 
begin,  as  other  worthies  have  done  before  me,  to 
doubt  my  own  identity  —  but  fora  little  store  laid 
by  in  a  corner,  of  the  capital  I  began  with,  and 
which  I  commend  again  to  all  beginners  —  namely, 
of  philosophy. 


176  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

"The  mind,"  says  an  old  author,  "like  the  body, 
must  digest  before  it  can  assimilate.  The  hungry 
dog  bites  your  fingers  as  he  takes  your  morsel  :  but 
the  food  becomes  flesh,  and  the  want  is  forgotten  — 
with  the  giver." 

And  so  I  have  found  it :  and  so,  no  doubt,  have 
others.  No  sooner  is  a  new  thought  imparted,  than 
it  sets  up  for  itself,  and  denies  its  pedigree.  "Why, 
that  is  exactly  what  I  told  you  three  years  ago, 

when  you  came  —  &c. !"  you  feel  on  the  point 

of  rapping  out,  struck  with  amazement. 

Spare  your  breath!  and  your  reproach.  He  can- 
not remember  any  thing  but  what  he  now  knows. 
He  forgets  that  he  ever  thought  otherwise!  Tell 
him,  now,  something  new,  and  you  will  see  again 
the  same  derisive  smile,  the  same  look  of  idle  won- 
der, aye  of  contempt,  at  your  fanciful,  ideal, 
"theoretic"  notions:  and  twice  twelvemonths  hence, 
when  your  idea  has  taken  root  and  become  a  fact, 
the  scene  of  to-day  will  be  acted  over  again.  Then 
go  to  your  Library — large  or  small  —  and  look  back 
over  the  history  of  the  world  ;  and  you  will  see  that 
the  annals  of  human  invention  and  discovery  are 
the  true  history  of  Martyrdom,  and  that  to  be  stoned 
by  his  own  generation,  and  worshiped  by  the  next, 
is  at  once  the  penalty  of  human  pioneership,  and 


"TALPA"  LOQUITUR.  177 

the  reiterated   monument  of  human  folly,  dotting 
the  road,  like  milestones. 

It  is  very  fine,  no  doubt,  to  connect  one's  own 
small-scale  improvements,  after  this  fashion,  with 
the  history  of  the  Great  and  the  Dead,  to  whom  life 
was  one  conflict  with  ridicule  and  contempt — a 
history  the  most  aifectingly  interesting — perhaps 
the  most  important  that  is  left  to  us  ;  —  but  after  all, 
the  grandeur  or  pettiness  of  the  scale  does  not  alter 
the  argument.  And  when  I  had  listened  for  half  an 
hour  to  Mr.  Greening  discoursing  of  Guano  and 
Superphosphate,  in  as  easy  and  as  matter-of-fact  a 
style  as  if  he  had  regularly  carted  them  out  of  his 
farm-yard  on  to  the  turnips  any  time  this  fifty  years, 
(though  he  still  called  it  Gu-anner,  and  would  not 
have  it,  at  any  price,  as  a  word  of  two  syllables,)  I 
could  not  help  mentally  amusing  myself  with  think- 
ing of  the  time  when  he  used  to  poke  every  im- 
aginable jocularity  at  me  for  "sowing  the  sawdust" 
"wheel-barrow  farming,"  "pocket-dung-carts," — and 
a  whole  heap  of  good  sayings  which,  duly  noted 
down  on  my  part,  made  my  chronicle  of  that  date  a 
complete  glossary  of  farming-witticisms  :  and  curious 
it  was  to  see  how  the  memory  of  former  incredulities 
had  passed  away  from  him.  My  deepest  drains 
were  no  longer  deep ;  my  largest  fields  no  longer 


178  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

"  to'  big  for  the  farm."  But  Greening  was  a  true 
improver  notwithstanding.  He  baptized  every  new- 
born notion  with  a  jest,  but  he  watched  its  growth, 
and  adopted  each  youngster  in  succession,  and  so 
heartily  and  practically  withal,  that  they  seldom  got 
into  his  hands  without  thriving  better  after  all  than 
they  had  done  in  mine. 

Ye  ardent  Go-aheads!  who  expect  every  new 
argument  to  tell  at  once  —  every  intellect  to  yield 
at  the  first  onset,  every  new  plan  to  be  tried  by 
everybody — learn  to  wait:  and  you  will  find  that 
there  is  much  more  chance  of  your  notion  being 
overtaJcen  than  overlooked,  much  more  likelihood 
of  your  having  to  re-claim  than  to  re-assert-  a  single 
hint  that  was  ever  good  for  any  thing.  The  seed 
may  seem  a  long  time  buried,  but  if  it  have  any 
vitality  in  it,  it  is  germinating  where  you  little 
think,  and  will  fructify  when  you  least  expect,  and 
with  a  produce  you  had  never  dreamt  of.  And 
when  you  come  again  and  say  "this  is  mine!" 
do  not  be  surprised  if  shouts  of  louder  laughter 
greet  you  than  even  befell  your  first  announcement 
of  it. 

I  had  time  to  think  all  this :  for  my  guest,  like 
a  shrewd  bargainer,  as  he  was,  gave  a  little  fling  to 
the  general  discourse  before  he  came  to  business. 


"TALPA"  LOQUITUK.  183 

cracks  the  bones  of  the  true  blood-suckers ;  and 
'  when  it 's  bad  weather  for  thieves,'  they  say, '  the 
true  man  may  sleep  the  sounder,'  let  the  rain  rattle 
on  his  cornstack,  how  it  may.  '  Let  Mr.  Lion  roar 
again,'  you  will  say,  when  you've  seen  the  end. 
Even  your  tiny  Mole  (TALPA)  is  a  ruthless  beast  of 
the  field — to  slugs,  and  snails,  and  caterpillars,  and 
such  land-sucking  fry  —  a  fierce  subnavigator,  in 
his  way  :  but  his  track  turns  up  some  pretty  culti- 
vation ;  it  only  wants  spreading  —  far  and  wide! 
it's  not  so  wise  to  throttle  him  as  you  think.  I 
grieve  to  see  him  hanging  gibbeted  —  his  clever 
paddles  stopped,  by  cruel  ignorance.  For  he  is 
your  only  granulation-master ;  he  taught  us  drain- 
age—  and  sw5-cultivation —  and  we  shall  learn  of 
him  another,  and  a  greater  lesson,  some  day,  and 
call  him  a  prophet — when  we've  done  hanging 
him  —  and  have  got  some  speculation  in  our  own 
eyes,  (whose  sense  is  shut  at  present,)  instead  of 
saying  he  can't  see.  Day  and  Night !  HE  has  the 
better  right  to  say  so  of  us! — But  as  for  this  price- 
of-corn  question  —  this  grain  crop  versus  Green 
crop  —  trust  me,  Nature  has  her  true  Propor- 
tions —  and  is  pretty  rigorous  in  maintaining  them  : 
and  you  cannot  throw  them  out  of  gear,  but  she  '11 
be  down  upon  you,  somewhere.  Green  crop  versus 


184  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

Grain-crop!  "Which  would  you  show  favor  to, 
if  either?  the  man  who  comes  to  make  an  in- 
vestment—  to  earn  a  crop,  knowing  the  cost, 
or  the  spoiler  that  comes  to  take  one,  counting 
nothing? — him  that  comes  to  sow  before  he  reaps, 
or  him  that  comes  to  reap  before  he  sows?  Do 
you  remember  what  I  said  about  'Grace  before 
meat.'" 

"  Yes,  yes !  I  remember  it,  I ' ve  thought  of  it  too, 
though  I  never  did  in  that  way  'xactly  before.  I 
see  your  meaning,  now.  But — but — about  the — 
"What  was  it  you  said  about  the  Rents  ?  " 

"Ah!  the  core!  the  vital  point — isn't  it?  touch 
it  tenderly  for  the  life  of  you ! " 

"But  will  they  fall?" 

"Will  they  stop  rising  a  bit?  Catch  that  fish 
first.  Get  him  well  on  the  hook:  land  him  care- 
fully; and  you  won't  have  quite  an  empty  basket, 
I  can  tell  you.  I'm  not  sure  if  it  won't  take  care 
of  itself  afterward.  Which  farm  pays  the  ~best 
rent,  even  now,  the  one  where  the  highest  was 
promised — or  the  other  f  " 

Mr.  Greening  drew  in  his  lips  and  shook  his 
head.  "Let  the  Landlords  answer  that.  "Taint 
all  gold  that  glitters.'" 


"TALPA"  LOQUITUR.  185 

"True :  so  for  those  that  can't  distinguish,  a  pure 
currency  were  the  greater  blessing,  eh?" 

"  There  '11  be  less  of  it,  I  'm  thinking,"  said  Mr. 
Greening,  "  if  it  comes  to  that.  But  that  aint  all. 
There's  them  Clay  Siles.  "We  haven't  done  with 
them  yet." 

"  We  have  n't  T)egun  with  'ern  ?  We  know  nothing 
about  them  !  almost  absolutely  nothing !  We  know 
that  they  are  stiff  to  the  plow,  and  sticky  to  the 
flock ;  positive  to  the  Bean,  and  negative  to  Barley ; 
costly  to  drain,  and,  without  it,  profitless  to  farm. 
We  blunder  on,  with  just  these  two  or  three  nega- 
tive dogmas  on  our  tongues,  and  are  satisfied  to 
think  them  knowledge  enough.  The  truth  is,  we 
have  every  thing  to  learn  about  them.  I  say 
again  we  have  n't  begun  with  'em !  But  come,  I  'm 
out  of  breath.  'After  breakfast  sit  awhile,' — we 
mustn't  ride  the  old  maxim  to  death.  Let's  go 
and  look  at  them:  I  can  give  you  your  choice  — 
Bed,  blue,  yellow,  and  white,  and  every  one  with 
a  different  temper  for  every  month  of  the  year! 
The  man  that  can  tell  what  is  to  be  done  with 
them — » 

"He's  the  ' coming  man,'  I  suppose,  said  Mr. 
Greening,  laughing,  and  beginning  to  pull  on  his 


186  CHRONICLES    OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

great-coat ;  "  he  must  be  able  to  mix  Fire  and 
Water  first,  I  'm  thinking ! " 

"  And  make  STEAM  ? "  —  said  the  other. 

Mr.  Greening  turned  short  round  at  the  answer, 
as  he  was  going  to  the  door,  and  looked  a  moment 
fixedly  at  the  speaker.  Both  smiled  :  but  there 
was  a  difference  in  the  smiles.  And  they  walked 
out  together.*  • 

*  The  inveterate  prejudice  of  the  imaginary  Mr.  Greening 
against  "clay "soils  is  quite  natural  to  those  unaccustomed  to 
them,  while  they  are,  in  reality,  when  properly  treated,  the 
most  productive  and  durable  of  all  others,  alluvions  cxcepted. 
Clay  soils  require  more  immediate  capital  in  their  preparation 
than  sands,  or  the  lighter  loams,  and  a  greater  amount  of 
mechanical  application  by  way  of  appropriate  implements 
than  the  others,  and  a  closer  regard  to  times  and  seasons  in 
working  them.  But  they  retain  the  manures  longer ;  arc 
more  prolific  in  their  own  original  elements  of  fertility ;  they 
retain  those  elements  with  greater  tenacity,  giving  off  only 
so  much  as  the  growing  crop  demands  to  perfect  its  growth, 
and  holding  the  residue  in  store  for  the  future;  are  much 
more  tenacious  of  the  grasses,  to  which  they  are  most  admi- 
rably adapted ;  and  yield  the  heaviest  and  most  certain  crops 
of  wheat.  There  are  objections,  however,  to  clays,  hard  to 
overcome  by  those  unacquainted  with  their  cultivation.  They 
are  sticky,  clammy,  and,  in  the  wrong  season,  hard  and  un- 
pleasant to  work;  they  often  require  draining  when  lying 


'TAXPA"   LOQUITUR. 


187 


flat;  they  make  bad  roads;  and  to  <in  unpracticed  eye,  are 
forbidding  altogether;  yet,  as  the  sequel  will  prove,  thor- 
oughly drained,  even  in  dripping  England,  and  equally  so  in 
the  drier  climate  of  America,  they  are  the  most  permanently 
productive  lands  that  we  have. — ED. 


1  We  shall  learn  of  him  another  and  a  greater  lesson,  some  day." 


XIX. 

THE  "POWERS"  THAT  BE. 

THE  concluding  words  of  the  conversation  which 
had  taken  place  between  my  worthy  guest  and 
myself  over  the  breakfast  table,  gave  us  both  an 
inclination  to  go  and  look  at  the  plowing.  A 
Wheat  stubble  which  had  been  just  drained  was 
being  broken  up  for  the  next  year's  Turnip  fallow. 
It  was  a  stiff  and  rather  thin  soil,  which  had,  to  my 
long  remembrance,  been  year  after  year  suffering  a 
continual  loss,  of  that  kind  denoted  by  a  deposit  of 
fine  sand  at  the  bottom  of  each  furrow,  against  the 
lower  headland,  from  the  silting  away  of  the  lighter 
particles  of  soil  with  the  surface-water  that  ran 
down  them.  I  used  never  to  look  at  it  without 
asking  myself  "How  many  hundred  years  has  this 
been  going  on?  and  what  must  be  the  amount  of 
deterioration  of  texture  (to  say  nothing  of  loss  of  ma- 
nure) which  this  field  has  suffered  in  the  aggregate? 


THE   "POWERS"   THAT  BE.  189 

Query — Would  it  be  as  stiff  a  soil  as  it  has  now 
the  reputation  of,  if  it  had  not  been  always  parting 
with  its  sand  by  this  continual  process  of  superficial 
scraping?"  When  I  came  to  drain  it,  I  found 
that  my  suspicion  was  correct.  Every  here  and 
there  the  subsoil  was  checkered  by  little  "pots" 
of  pure  sand  imbedded  in  red  clay,  and  so  full 
of  water  that  the  drainer  was  obliged  to  tap  them 
carefully  to  prevent  large  masses  breaking  off  and 
rushing  down  with  the  fluid  that  burst  out  of  them 
when  the  sides  were  cut  through.  The  effect  of 
the  drainage  was  already  most  remarkable.  The 
workmen  called  it  "  beautiful ;  "  and  though  nothing 
can  present  a  more  dreary  look  than  a  fresh-drained 
field  with  all  the  cold  varieties  of  subsoil  lying 
exposed  along  the  lines  of  the  drains,  I  could  not 
help  feeling  the  truth  of  the  expression,  applied 
as  it  was  prospectively  rather  than  to  the  actual 
scene  before  the  eye.  It  was  "beautiful"  in  the 
same  sense  that  many  a  Tough-looking  act,  and 
many  a  painful,  soul-subduing  thought,  and  many 
a  rainy  day  of  life's  adversities,  is  "beautiful" — 
by  its  consequences  ;  and  I  always  liked  the  word, 
so  pregnant  with  faith  in  what  is  unseen  except 
by  the  mental  eye  that  "views  the  Future  in  the 
Instant."  Inexperience  or  ignorance  would  have 


190  CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY   FAKM. 

called  it  intensely  ugly,  and  would  have  preferred 
the  previous  smooth  surface  of  the  field,  dank,  cold, 
and  intractable  as  it  was  before.  What  a  pleasant 
effect  upon  the  broad  field  of  society  it  would  have, 
if  a  few  furrow-tiles  could  undermine  some  of  the 
cold,  stiff  surfaces  one  meets  with  here  and  there, 
through  which  nothing  penetrates  —  in  which  no 
gentle  plant  takes  root  —  while  the  lighter  and  bet- 
ter particles  Nature  originally  gave,  keep  silting 
away,  as  life  advances,  leaving  nothing  but  a  hard 
and  chilly  surface  growing  colder  and  more  im- 
passive every  day  to  all  the  genial  influences  which 
shower  warmth  upon  the  heart  that  will  but  expand 
to  and  accept  them. 

"  Well !  You  are  a-going  deep  to  be  sure ! " — 
said  Mr.  Greening,  following  the  fresh-turned  fur- 
row, and  picking  up  an  antediluvian  lump  of  sub- 
soil now  and  then,  and  crushing  it  between  his 
fingers.  "  Why  there  's  plenty  of  sand  here  :  this  '11 
be  mild  enough  for  any  thing  presently ;  you  do  n't 
call  this  a  stiff  soil?"* 

*  How  many  stiff,  dead  and  stubborn  "clays"  have  we 
passed  of  this  same  description,  repulsive  and  apparently 
worthless,  which  the  drain  tile  would  change  into  a  beautiful 
permeable  soil,  open  to  the  kindliest  cultivation  !  There  can 
scarcely  be  found  a  more  lucrative  investment  of  capital  in 


THE   "  POWERS"   THAT   BE.  191 

"  It  has  lain  like  a  stubborn  brute  that  would  n't 
rise,  for  work  or  play,  ever  since  I  have  known  it. 
It  won't  know  itself  next  year !  It  has  never  borne 
Turnip  or  Barley,  since  the  Flood — which,  in  fact, 
it  has  never  recovered,  I  suppose,  till  the  draining 
tools  have  bled  it  in  this  way.  How  little  one  can 
say  what  a  soil  is,  till  it  is  drained ! " 

"  It  does  one's  heart  good  to  look  at  it  now,  howr 
ever,"  replied  Mr.  Greening;  "doesn't  it  make  you 
happy-like  to  see  this  sort  of  change,  and  feel  that 
you  have  done  it?  It  does  me." 

"So  happy,  that  at  the  end  of  a  winter's  day  of 
draining-work  I  have  spent  hours  of  delicious  idle 
reverie,  with  the  Lamp  wasting  beside  me  as  I  sat 
alone,  dreaming  the  day's  work  over  again ;  seeing, 
yet  with  closed  eyes,  the  long  pent-up  poison  oozing 
away  down  its  narrow  channels — poison  no  longer! 
and  thinking  of  the  future  showers  that  will  perco- 
late and  filter  through  the  loosened  soil  and  subsoil 
three  or  four  feet  deep,  like  some  freed  and  glad- 
dened thing  doing  its  bounteous  Maker's  bidding! 

our  populous  districts,  than  to  purchase  the  apparently 
"worthless"  clayn  that  have  been  thrown  by,  after  long-neg- 
lected cultivation.  Give  them  a  thorough  draining,  and  by 
such  means,  almost  alone,  restore  them  to  their  original 
fertility  and  productiveness — ED. 


192  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FAEM. 

I  hardly  know  how  to  describe  the  sense  of  high 
privilege  the  thought  brings  with  it  —  of  being 
allowed  humbly  to  aid,  as  it  were,  in  Nature's 
glorious  development.  I  know  of  no  pleasure  that 
surpasses  it  —  or  should  surpass  it  —  except  one  — 
except  one  —  except  ONE  ! " 

"  Goodness  help  us !  why  that 's  three  !  —  And 
what  may  it  be,  after  all,  that  lifts  the  knocker  so 
many  times  for  one  visitor  ? " 

"  Look  here,  Greening !  do  you  see  that  poor 
fellow  cracking  his  whip  over  the  horses  in  that 
lounging  devil-may-care  fashion?  It's  his  first 
year  at  plow  :  he  was  '  kipping  craows '  for  the 
last  two  or  three.  Is  n't  that  a  proper  amusement 
for  a  thing  with  a  human  skull,  and  a  real  live 
human  brain  inside  it?  That's  a  promoted  scare- 
crow! Doesn't  he  look  happy?" 

"  Well !  he 's  a  right  to  do.  He 's  doing  his  duty, 
is  n't  he,  as  well  as  you  and  me  !  You  can't  do  with- 
out him." 

"  Ah !  yes, —  yes !  that 's  the  answer.  He 's  a 
machine ,  driving  a  machine." 

"Well  —  no  —  not  exactly  that,  neither.  They 
tell  me  a  plow  ain't  a  machine.  Come,  I  have 
you  there  for  once,  however.  A  plow 's  only  a 
tool." 


THE   "POWERS"   THAT   BE.  193 

"  True,  true  :  a  tool  worked  by  horses,  and  drag- 
ging a  man  after  it.  You  never  spoke  plainer 
truth,  Greening!  And  here  we  are  somewhere 
near  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
talk  of  agricultural  improvements  !  It  shames  me 
to  think  of  it." 

"What,  ashamed  o'  the  plow!  O  dear,  dear! 
Well,  I  a'in't,  and  never  was,  nor  never  shall  be, 
neither,  that 's  more" 

"Too  much,  a  little.  How  do  you  know  you 

never  will  be  f  " 

"  Not,  however,  till  something Oh,  ho !  I 

know  now  what  you're  after.  You\e  a-driving 
now!  Ay,  ay!  Now  I  think  of  it — they  tell  me 
you  're  always  a-driving  somehow  against  the  plow. 
"Well,  what 's  the  matter  with  it  ?  So  long  as  it 's  a 
good  'un,  mind  !  Come  now,  I  should  like  to  hear 
from  your  own  lips  what  you  've  got  to  say  agin'  it. 
I  can  not  understand  them  books,  so  it's  no  use 
trying  ;  and  I  do  try,  that 's  a  fact ;  but  as  sure  as  I 
get  half  way  down  a  page  I  go  to  sleep.  A  lot  o' 
Chemistry  and  stuff!  I  '11  back  Common  Sense  agin' 
Chemistry  any  day.  But  I  should  like  just  to  hear 
you  on  a  bit  about  the  plow  —  I  think  I  could  un- 
derstand that ;  but  you  must  please  keep  the  words 

close-cropped,  you  know  —  no  raspers  !     A  farmer's 
9 


194  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FAEM. 

words  should  be  like  his  hedges,  I  always  think  — 
plain  and  short  and  smooth-like,  and  not  too  many 
of  'em !  and  then  they  may  help  to  '  fill  the  bushel ' 
after  all,  p'rhaps.  But  about  the  plow  —  I  beg  your 
pardon  —  you  was  a  saying  something " 

" No,  no !  go  on,  Greening !     I  like  to  hear  you" 

"Well,  I've  done,  i'  faith!  clean  out,  like.  I'm 
your  listener  for  half  an  hour  —  more,  if  you  can 
spare  it." 

"  Can  you  promise  that  ?  I  've  had  many  a  useful 
hint  from  you  —  could  you  sit  and  listen  to  my 
nonsense  now,  just  for  half  an  hour,  straight  on  to 
the  end — no  snoring  allowed,  mind  !  —  and  what  if 
I  were  to  read  it,  instead  of  speaking?  Now  don't 
be  frightened !  it  isn't  a  book — only  a  few  sheets  of 
paper  poked  away  in  a  drawer  somewhere,  and 
scribbled  over:  fancy  it  a  long  letter  from  your 
ever  affectionate  brother  beyond  the  sea,  or  a  notice 
from  your  landlord  that  he's  going  to  lower  your 
rent,  and  giving  all  his  reasons  for  it.  Don't  you 
think  you  could  keep  your  eyes  open?" 

"Well,  I  think  I  could.  But  I  hope  it's  in 
c  words  o'  two  syllables  : '  that 's  all  I  bargain  for  ; 
and  I  'm  your  man,  now.  No  time  like  the  present 
time !  " 

A  few  short  steps  homeward  ;  a  long  rummaging 


THE   "POWERS"   THAT   BE.  195 

over  a  drawer  of  papers ;  a  great  deal  of  settling 
down  comfortably  in  arm-chairs  ;  and  I  'm  afraid,  a 
couple  of  cigars,  followed  this  sudden  resolution ; 
and  Mr.  Greening  looked  wide  awake,  as  the  other, 
casting  his  eye  rapidly  down  the  pages  of  a  manu- 
script, which  looked  as  if  a  swarm  of  spiders  had 
crept  out  of  the  ink-pot  and  been  playing  at  leap- 
frog over  the  paper  —  cleared  his  throat  and  began 
reading  his 

"PRIVATE  NOTIONS  ON  CULTIVATION." 
"There  are  three  kinds  of  'power'  employed  by 
man.  The  first  is  manual  power,  the  second  is  ani- 
mal power,  and  the  third  and  most  recent,  is  me- 
chanical power.  Each  has  its  own  peculiar  mode 
of  action;  and  refuses  to  adopt  that  of  either  of 
the  others.  The  power  of  a  man,  from  his  erect  fig- 
ure, and  the  direction  of  his  spine,  acts  most  effect- 
ively in  lifting.  When  he  works  at  a  winch,  his 
greatest  force  is  in  lifting  the  handle  from  its  lowest 
point  in  the  circle,  to  about  half  way  up.  In  pull- 
ing at  the  oar,  or  towing  a  barge,  he  inclines  his 
figure  so  as  to  adjust  it  as  much  as  possible  in  a  direc- 
tion perpendicular  to  the  stress.  In  digging,  he  lifts 
the  soil  more  than  the  plow  does,  and  in  pressing 
the  spade  into  the  ground,  he  still  employs  perpen- 
dicular force,  limited  only  by  his  weight.  Manual 


196  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FAKM. 

labor  is  in  fact  most  powerful  in  perpendicular 
action. 

"But  when  the  man  gives  up  the  spade,  the  hoe, 
or  the  flail,  and  employs  his  horse  to  cultivate  or 
thrash  for  him,  a  new  application  of  power  becomes 
necessary.  The  back-bone  of  the  quadruped  is  hor- 
izontal^ not  perpendicular,  to  the  ground :  and  the 
adaptation  of  the  power  must  be  accordingly.  The 
horse  cannot  lift  and  press  the  implement  of  culti- 
vation, but  he  can  draw  it  along  ;  so  the  spade  and 
the  hoe  are  turned  into  tools  of  draught,  and  are 
drawn  through  the  soil,  raisiug  it  with  the  spiral 
wedge-like  action  of  the  plow,  very  damaging  to  the 
subsoil  upon  which  the  whole  stress  and  hardening 
pressure  come,  but  cheap  and  expeditious  compared 
with  the  spade,  so  far  as  regards  the  mere  inversion, 
or  partial  inversion,  of  the  soil ;  though  doing  little 
toward  its  cultivation.  Again,  in  thrashing,  the 
application  of  the  horse's  power  must  still  be  hori- 
zontal, like  his  figure,  and  his  work  be  done  by 
lateral  pulling.  The  direction  of  animal  power,  in 
fact,  is  horizontal:  and  horizontal  draught  is  the 
only  form  in  which  it  can  be  applied.* 

"But  draught  is  not  necessary  to  cultivation,  nor 

*  Except  in  tho  case  of  a  turnspit  dog,  or  a  squirrel  in  a 
cage,  where  it  is  applied  to  generate  circular  motion. 


THE  "TOWERS"  IIIAT  BE.  197 

is  it  even  desirable.  The  plow,  the  harrows,  the 
scuffler,  and  the  horse-shoe,  are  but  processes  ren- 
dered necessary  by  the  only  possible  mode  of  ap- 
plying horse-power  to  the  turning  and  breaking  of 
the  soil. 

'•'•Mechanical  power  is  totally  different :  and  has 
no  more  business  to  be  applied  to  the  plow,  than  a 
horse  to  a  spade.  When  horses  have  been  taught  to 
dig,  the  steam-engine  may  perhaps  be  taught  to 
plow :  but  nothing  will  be  gained  by  either ;  because 
it  is  NOT  THEIR  MODE  OF  ACTION,  respectively.  The 
laws  of  Matter  and  of  Motion  are  imperative ;  and 
pay  no  service  to  the  dull-eyed  prejudice  of  man. 
Mechanical  power  has  many  modes  of  action ;  but 
whether  wind,  or  water,  or  steam,  be  the  driving 
agent,  the  favorite  motion  is  the  vertically -circular. 
The  horizontal  water-wheel  is  good,  but  extrava- 
gant, and  of  limited  application ;  but  it  is  worth 
mentioning  as  a  singular  exception.  Where  steam 
is  employed,  vertical-circular  action  is  almost  uni- 
versal. Instance  the  steam-paddle,  the  screw-pro- 
peller, the  common  fly-wheel,  the  locomotive,  the 
circular  saw,  the  drum  of  the  thrashing-machine, 
the  steam  pump,  and  many  others  that  will  occur  to 
the  recollection  of  the  engineer.  When  we  plow 
the  sea  by  steam,  we  do  it  with  the  circular  blades 


198  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FAKM. 

of  a  paddle:  why  not  the  earth?  "When  we 
cut  wood  into  saw-dust  by  steam,  we  do  it  with 
the  revolving  teeth  of  a  circular  saw;  why  not 
the  clod  into  soil  as  fine,  by  the  same  mode  of 
action  ? 

"What  has  the  laborious  dragging  of  a  plow  to 
do  with  steam-mechanism,  whose  mode  of  action 
lies  in  rapid  revolution,  which  applied  behind  your 
locomotive,  (which  must  travel  forward  on  the  hard 
soil,)  could  cut  a  trench  a  foot  deep,  and  with  its 
case-hardened  tines,  rasp  away  the  soil  from  the 
land  side  to  any  pattern  of  fineness,  as  easily  as  a 
saw  can  cut  a  board — taking  a  moderate  bite  of 
six  or  eight  feet  wide  as  it — " 

"Gently  over  the  stones!"  said  Mr.  Greening, 
suddenly  waking  up  as  the  door  opened  and  the 
crash  of  a  fallen  tumbler  announced  the  entry  of 
luncheon — "a  bite  six  feet  wide.  My  heart!  who 
was  it  that  took  that,  Sir?  "What  a  happy-tight  he 
must  have  had!  What,  luncheon  a'ready!  well,  it's 
uncommon  interesting,  I'm  sure.  Why,  you'll  be 
quite  an  Inventor !  It 's  for  all  the  world  like  what 
my  little  girl  reads  out  to  me  o'  nights  from  her 
'Life  o'  Columbus' — somewhere  in  the  beginning 
part,  where  he  talks  to  himself  so,  till  they  all 
thought  him  out  of  his  wits.  I'm  blest  if  it  a'n't 


THE   "POWERS"   THAT   BE.  199 

just  like  Columbus,  as  discovered  America. —  You 
ought  to  take  a  pattern  out,  Sir."  * 

"Did  Columbus  take  out  a  patent,  Greening?" 
"  Oh  my !  that 's  capital !  a  pattern  for  America ! 
Well,  that  is  a  good  un,  however :  no,  no,  I  guess 
his  diskivery  was  a  little  too  big  for  a  pattern  — 
'  Wide  as  a  world  and  broad  as  'umanity,'  as  our 
parson  says — No,  no!  he  died  quite  the  wrong  side 

*  We  cannot  but  fancy  that  a  colloquy  with  Mr.  Greening 
on  the  subject  of  the  steam  digger  would  have  made  him  a 
more  attentive  listener.  Of  all  opiates  to  shut  up  the  drowsy 
faculties  of  a  laboring  man,  and  the  farm  laborer  beyond  any 
other — that  of  reading  is  the  most  effectual,  even  on  an  ordi- 
narily interesting  subject.  Wo  blame  the  farmer  for  not  being 
a  reader.  He  can  read  more  than  ho  does,  in  a  great  majority 
of  cases.  He  can  always  read  enough  to  suggest  abundant 
thoughts  during  his  hours  of  labor;  but  the  man  who  toils 
in  the  field  early  and  late,  has  little  inclination  to  read  during 
his  hours  of  rest.  Read,  every  one  should,  and  he  should 
have  set  apart  the  proper  time  and  seasons  for  it.  A  laboring 
man  can  think  as  well  as  another,  and  no  reading  is  worth 
much  without  thought  to  follow  and  impress  it  upon  the 
mind.  Burns  "crooned"  over  his  songs  and  his  letters  as  he 
followed  the  plow  during  the  day,  suggested  in  part,  perhaps, 
by  what  he  had  read  the  previous  evening;  and  probably 
many  of  the  brightest  and  most  valuable  thoughts  and  inven- 
tions ever  given  to  the  world  have  been  elaborated  amid  the 
toils  of  the  work-shop,  or  the  farm. — ED. 


200  CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY   FARM. 

o'  money-making,  now  I  think  of  it. — But  I  wish 
you'd  a'  talked  it,  now,  instead  o'  reading:  for 
somehow  the  soft  back  of  this  chair  o'  yourn,  and 
that — what  was  it — piping-Didder  —  oh,  dear; 
what  a  word  that  was  ;  it  sent  me  right  off  wool- 
gathering— I  knew  it  would!  I  just  shut  my  eyes 
to  think  it  over  a  bit — and  I  was  off  like  a  shot. 
What  is  the  use  o'  them  long  words  —  they're  just 
for  all  the  world  like  the  Spanish  onions — han't 
half  as  much  flavor  in  'em  as  little  uns.  That's 
what  comes  o'  traveling  abroad,  now!  Blesh  ye, 
them  Romans  and  Antidaluvians  as  you  'a'  been 
amongst,  do  n't  know  no  more  about  farming  than  a 
lot  o'  cockney  tailors,  for  all  their  long  words.  Now 
do,  Sir,  just  try  if  you  can't  slice  it  up  like,  into 
small  words,  so  that  a  plain  Englishman  can  under- 
stand it — " 

"And  make  it  so  plain  that  every  one  as  he 

reads  shall  think  h&  knew  it  before.  Well — 
come — we'll  talk  it  over  in  plain  English  after 
luncheon." 


XX. 

THE  PLAIN  "ENGLISH"  OF  IT. 

WHAT  a  curious,  complicate,  half-interesting,  half- 
provoking  problem  is  that  presented  by  a  shrewd, 
practical,  experienced,  and  well-poised  mind,  without 
education.  Of  course  I  am  not  speaking  of  that 
education  which  every  active  mind,  learned  or  un- 
learned, is  daily  picking  up,  from  the  first  entrance 
into  real  life,  till  "  the  night  cometh  when  no  man 
can  work  ; "  but  that  particular  appropriation  of 
certain  early  years  to  the  school-room  process,  (such 
as  it  still  is!)  by  which  the  mind  is  kneaded,  and 
tempered,  and  subdued,  during  its  only  plastic  age, 
into  that  peculiar  tilth  and  texture,  whose  after- 
benefit  is  known,  not  by  the  acquisition  of  the 
prescribed  formula  and  rudiments  of  knowledge, 
but  chiefly  by  the  having  learnt  the  art  of  learning. 
If  the  knowledge  that  is  carried  away  from  school, 

or  college,  were  all,  Heaven  help  our  First-class-men 
9* 


202  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FAKM. 

and  Senior-wranglers!  But  if  you  want  to  know 
the  real  value  and  blessing  of  that  tedious  operation 
that  seems  to  cut  up  our  early  liberties,  for  so  many 
years,  into  "morning  and  evening  lessons,"  watch 
the  efforts  of  a  naturally  strong  and  gifted  mind, 
struggling  in  the  after-years  of  life  against  the  ste- 
reotyped effects  of  early  neglect. 

There  is  no  class,  probably,  in  society,  among 
whom  more  striking  instances  of  this  occur  than 
the  agricultural :  none,  perhaps,  in  which  there  is 
less  of  what  is  called  "  book-learning ; "  none,  cer- 
tainly, in  which  there  is  more  of  natural  shrewdness, 
and  a  sort  of  furtive  observation  which  shrinks  from 
being  itself  observed,  paying  the  tribute  of  a  kind 
of  secret  intelligence  and  appreciation  to  qualifi- 
cations and  attainments  which  it  never  affects,  and, 
to  the  careless  eye,  appears  to  despise.  But  it 
discriminates  nicely.  For  Nature  is  a  schoolmaster 
that  teaches  without  spelling-books.  To  the  hus- 
bandman, toiling  early  and  late,  her  rede  goeth 
forth,  but  not  in  speech  nor  language :  it  inwardly 
informs :  and  as  the  teacher  teaches,  so  the  scholar 
learns. 

Such  was  the  case  with  my  good  friend  Mr.  Green- 
ino-:  for  I  have  tried  to  delineate  his  character, 

rt  * 

which  was  an  admirable  type  of  a  class  still  little 


THE  PLAIN  "ENGLISH"  OF  IT.  203 

understood,  and  caring  little  to  be  so.  I  knew  that 
he  would  be  "asleep"  during  my  sermon  "on  culti- 
vation : "  and  he  knew  that  I  knew  it ;  and  would 
not  have  been  awake  under  the  affliction  of  so  many 
long  words  for  his  life  and  character's  sake.  But 
to  sleep  without  an  eye  or  an  ear  left  for  sentry- 
duty —  that  was  far  from  Benjamin  Greening.  And 
I,  for  my  part,  was  satisfied  with  my  audience ;  the 
more  so,  because  I  knew  that  I  should  find  in  him 
an  objector,  who  would  not  fail  to  start  every  diffi- 
culty which  feigned  ignorance,  or  practical  knowl- 
edge, was  likely  to  suggest. 

Mr.  Greening,  however,  was  taken  with  a  long  fit 
of  silence.  Luncheon  came  and  went,  and  that 
preoccupying  subject  he  discussed  amply  and  seri- 
atim in  all  its  branches :  but  I  could  see  that  my 
dose  was  not  inoperative.  The  vindication  of  his 
old  friend  the  Plow  was  hot  within  him,  the  while  ; 
struggling  only  with  a  curiosity  to  hear  the  transla- 
tion into  plain  English  that  I  had  promised  him ; 
and  which,  he  knew,  would  open  plenty  of  points 
of  attack  more  assailable  than  the  compact  and 
synthetical  phalanx  of  long  words  he  had  inter- 
rupted so  opportunely  at  "the  stones." 

'  "  So  we  're  not  to  have  a  Steam-Pfcw,  then,  after 
all — eh, -sir?"  he  at  last  began.  ""Well,  I've  heerd 


204:  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

talk  of  it  so  long,  that  I  hardly  know  whether  I'm 
glad  or  sorry.  But,  lor'  blesh  ye,  you  go  too  fast : 
the  Plow's  too  old  a  stager  to  be  got  rid  of  that 
way.  Steam  I  do  suppose  it  will  be  some  day : 
there  I  suppose  you're  right  enough.  But  if 
we're  to  wait  till  this  what  d'ye  call  it,  French 
revolution  sort  of  thing  —  well  —  I  beg  pardon  — 
this  merry-go-round  Conundrum  o'  yours  [Well, 
well!  whatever  it  is,  then]  is  brought  to  pass  — 
why,  it's  like  waiting  for  two  things  instead  o' 
one.  No,  no !  plowing  it  must  be  :  it  «'«,  however, 
already!  for  I  hear  talk  o'  one  or  two  people  as 
are  trying  it  on.  There's  some  lord,  I  forget  his 
name,  has  written  a  book  all  about  it,  with  a  picture 
a  yard  long,  where  it 's  all  at  work  as  nice  as  can 
be  ;  an  engine  at  each  end,  and  the  plows  a-drawing 
away  in  the  middle.  He 's  afore  you,  entirely ;  for 
there  it  is,  actshally  a-plowing  with  common  plows  — 
in  the  book." 

"  Listen  to  me,  you  old  perversity.  I  have  seen 
that '  book '  as  you  call  it.  The  pamphlet  reached 
me  long  before  you  saw  it ;  but  not  till  long  after 
the  idea  it  portrays  had  been  as  familiar  as  an  old 
family-picture  to  my  mind's  eye,  and  banished,  in 
its  turn,  before  ever  the  engraver's  tool  had  given  it 
outward  form  and  semblance.  If  plowing  were  ever 


THE  PLAIN  "ENGLISH"  OF  IT.  205 

done  by  steam,  that  were  no  doubt  the  most  obvious 
way,  and  as  good  a  way  as  any.  But  I  hold  it 
(under  favor)  to  be  an  idea  fundamentally  erroneous 
to  attempt  to  combine  steam-machinery  with  the 
plow.  And  I  hope  I  am  not  presumptuous  in  record- 
ing my  conviction  that  until  the  idea  of  the  Plow, 
and  in  a  word,  of  all  -Dra^A^-cultivation  is  utterly 
abandoned,  no  effective  progress  will  be  made  in 
the  application  of  Steam  to  the  tilling  of  the  earth. 
I  repeat  what  I  have  said  before,  that  '  plowing '  is 
a  mere  contrivance  for  applying  animal  power  to 
tillage:  Get  out  of  animal-power,  and  you  leave 
'  plowing '  behind  altogether.  Get  into  steam-power 
and  you  have  no  more  to  do  with  the  plow,  than  a 
Horse  has  to  do  with  a  spade.  It  is  no  essential 
whatever  of  cultivation  that  it  should  be  done  by 
the  traction  of  the  implement.  Spade-work  is  per- 
pendicular. Horse-work  is  horizontal.  Machine- 
work  is  circular. 

"Who  would  now  dream  of  retaining  the  form  of 
the  hand-flail  in  the  Thrashing-machine,  or  that  of 
the  oar  in  a  steam-ship,  or  of  putting  the  piston-rod 
to  work  at  the  lever-end  of  a  pump-handle?  Yet 
doubtless  these  piebald  attempts  were  all  made  in 
their  day,  till  the  several  inventors  had  come  to  see 
in  turn  that 


206  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FAKM. 

'  'T  is  gudo  to  bo  off  with  the  old  love 
Before  ye  be  on  wi'  the  new  ! ' 

"  But  no  one  can  imagine,  without  trying  it,  the 
difficulty  of  making  the  mechanical  part  of  the  ques- 
tion intelligible  to  the  agriculturist,  and  the  agricul- 
tural part  to  the  machinist.  The  steam-engine  has 
no  taste  whatever  for  straight  draught.  lie  is  a 
revolutionist,  in  the  most  exact  sense  of  the  word. 
He  works  by  revolution:  and  by  revolution  only 
will  he  cut  up  the  soil  into  a  seed-bed,  of  the  pattern 
required  be  it  coarse  or  fine.  And  that,  it  is  my  firm 
belief,  he  will  be  seen  doing  at  a  handsome  average, 
before  a  very  large  portion  of  another  century  shall 
have  passed  over.  "Why  should  it  not  be?  Why 
should  not  a  strip  or  lair  of  earth  be  cut  up  into  fine 
soil  at  one  operation  (and  sown  and  harrowed  in, 
too,)  as  easy  as  a  circular-saw  cuts  a  plank  into  saw- 
dust? But  when  you  come  to  employing 

a  Steam-engine 

to  turn  a  Drum, 

to  wind  a  Rope, 

to  drag  a  Plow, 

to  turn  up  a  Furrow, 

and  all  this  as  a  mere  prelude  for  an  after-amuse- 
ment to  all  the  ancient  tribe  of  harrows,  scufflers, 
rollers,  and  clod-crushers,  to  do  supplementally  the 


THE  PLAIN  "ENGLISH"  OF  IT.  207 

real  work  of  cultivation,  it  reminds  one  of  4the 
house  that  JACK  built.'  One  can  hardly  blame  the 
iron  ribs  of  any  respectable  boiler  for  bursting  at 
the  first  pull,  in  a  task  so  utterly  at  variance  with 
every  known  law  of  mechanical  advancement,  so 
repugnant  to  the  economies,  I  had  almost  said  the 
very  ethics  of  the  steam-engine. 

"I  trust  to  be  some  day  forgiven  for  so  boldly 
speaking;  but  I  am  sorry  to  think  of  one  useful 
shilling  being  thrown  away  in  the  attempt,  unprofit- 
able even  if  successful,  of  harnessing  steam  with 
horse  harness,  to  do  horse's  work  in  a  horse's  way ; 
the  implement  itself,  whose  wretched  work  it  is  put 
to  accomplish,  being  a  tool  with  sentence  of  death 
written  upon  it  (be  it  as  ancient  as  it  may,)  for 
its  tyranny  to  the  subsoil,  which  bears  the  whole 
burthen  and  injury  of  its  laborious  path. 

"I  say  the  Plow  has  sentence  of  death  written 
upon  it,  because  it  is  essentially  imperfect.  What 
it  does  is  little  toward  the  work  of  cultivation ;  but 
that  little  is  tainted  by  a  radical  imperfection — 
damage  to  the  subsoil,  which  is  pressed  and  hard- 
ened by  the  share,  in  an  exact  ratio  with  the  weight 
of  soil  lifted,^Zws  that  of  the  force  required  to  effect 
the  cleavage,  and  the  weight  of  the  instrument  itself. 
Were  there  no  other  reason  for  saying  it  than  this, 


208  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

this  alone  would  entitle  the  philosophic  machinist 
to  say,  and  see,  that  the  plow  was  never  meant  to 
be  immortal.  The  mere  invention  of  the,  subsoiler 
is  a  standing  commentary  on  the  mischief  done  by 
the  plow. 

"Why  then  should  we  struggle  for  its  survival 
under  the  new  dynasty  of  Steam?  The  true  object 
is  not  to  perpetuate,  but  as  soon  as  possible  to  get 
rid  of  it.  Why  poke  an  instrument  seven  or  eight 
inches  under  the  clod,  to  tear  it  up  in  the  mass  by 
main  force,  for  other  instruments  to  act  upon, 
toiling  and  treading  it  down  again,  in  ponderous 
attempts  at  cultivation  wholesale — when  by  simple 
abrasion  of  the  surface  by  a  revolving  toothed 
instrument,  with  a  span  as  broad  as  the  hay-tedding 
machine  or  CKOSSKILL'S  clod-crusher,  you  can  per- 
form the  complete  work  of.  comminution  in  the  most 
light,  compendious,  and  perfect  detail? 

"  Imagine  such  an  instrument  (not  rotting  on  the 
ground,  but)  performing  independent  revolutions 
behind  its  locomotive,  cutting  its  way  down  by 
surface  abrasion,  into  a  semicircular  trench  about  a 
foot  and  a  half  wide,  throwing  back  the  pulverized 
soil  (as  it  flies  back  from  the  feet  of  a  dog  scratching 
at  a  rabbit-hole  :)  then  imagine  the  locomotive  mov- 
ing forward  on  the  hard  ground  with  a  slow  and 


THE  PLAIN  "ENGLISH"  OF  rr.  209 

equable  mechanical  motion,  the  revolver  behind, 
with  its  cutting-points  (case-hardened)  playing  upon 
the  edge,  or  land-side  of  the  trench  as  it  advances, 
and  capable  of  any  adjustment  to  coarse  or  fine 
cutting ;  moving  always  forward,  and  leaving  be- 
hind, granulated  and  inverted  by  its  revolving 
action,  a  seed-bed  seven  or  eight  inches  deep, 
never  to  be  gone  over  again  by  any  after-implement 
except  the  drill,  which  had  much  better  follow  at 
once,  attached  behind  with  a  light  brush-harrow  to 
cover  the  seed. 

"It  is  hard,  by  mere  language  and  without  a  dia- 
gram, to  describe  intelligibly  to  the  mind's  eye  an 
instrument  that  has  not  been  seen,  however  it  may 
have 'become  familiar  to  my  own.  My  notion  may 
be  wrong,  but  I  am  strongly  induced  to  feel  that 
such  an  instrument  alone  will  ever  fulfill  the  requi- 
sitions of  the  steam-engine,  which  shortens  and 
remodels  every  labor  it  undertakes,  and  never  con- 
descends to  old  appliances,  except  where  they  are 
themselves  intrinsically  perfect  in  their  mode  of 
action. 

"Why  did  Steam  reject  the  Pump-handle  and 
the  Oar!  Because,  in  both,  the  leverage  is  ob- 
tained by  loss  of  labor  and  time,  occurring  during 
the  back  movement  of  the  handle,  a  movement 


210  CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY  FARM. 

necessary  to  the  manual,  but  not  to  the  mechanical 
agent.  For  the  same  reason  whenever  it  is  applied 
to  till  the  earth,  it  will  antiquate  every  instrument 
that  cultivates  l>y  traction,  because  traction  is  not 
only  not  necessary  to  cultivation,  but  is  inherently 
mischievous  on  other  grounds,  apart  from  the  clum- 
siness, inaccuracy,  and  incompleteness  of  the  work 
it  turns  out. 

"  But  THE  STONES  !  There  is  much  fear  expressed 
for  the  teeth  of  the  circular-cutting  implement  I 
have  described,  when  they  come  in  contact  with 
stones.  The  objection  would  have  been  equally 
valid,  at  first  sight,  against  the  use  of  the  Plow  or 
the  Scuffler.  Let  me  see  the  instrument  in  use 
where  there  are  no  stones  —  (and  there  are  plenty 
of  broad  acres  in  England  of  this  class ; )  and  it  will 
not  be  long  before  it  gets  upon  the  others.  If  it 
costs  five  pounds  an  acre  to  clear  them  out,  it  must 
be  done,  and  would  in  such  case,  well  pay  to-do  it. 
But  the  truth  is  that  the  instrument  itself  suggests 
the  kind  of  machine  which,  with  a  little  adaptation 
(greater  power  and  slower  motion,)  might  perform 
this  preliminary  service  at  the  least  expense.  If 
land  is  to  be  like  a  garden  in  one  respect,  I  see  no 
good  reason  why  it  should  not  in  all.  I  do  not 
think  stones  will  stand  long  in  the  way  of  Steam,  or 


THE  PLAIN  "ENGLISH"  OF  IT.  211 

be  readily  preferred  to  bread ;  if,  where  there  hap- 
pen to  ~be  none,  a  steam-driven  cultivator  can  be 
brought  to  bear,  which,  after  the  simple  and  beauti- 
ful example  of  the  mole,  shall  play  out  the  long 
comedy  of  our  present  field-cultivation  in  a  single 
act,  present  a  finely  granulated  seed-bed  by  a  single 
process,  almost  at  the  hour  required ;  and  trammel 
up  the  'long  summer  fallow'  into  the  labor  of  a  day, 
with  an  accuracy  as  perfect  as -the  turning  of  a 
Lathe,  and  an  aeration  (and  consequent  oxygenation) 
of  the  soil  as  diffusive  and  minute  as  that  of  a  scat- 
tered mole-heap,  or  the  dust  flying  from  a  circular- 
saw-bench. 

"Implement-makers  and  mechanicians  would  not 
be  long  in  understanding  all  this,  if  they  were  not 
under  the  supposition,  received  at  second  hand  by 
them,  and  therefore  the  more  difficult  to  eradicate, 
that  plowing  is  a  necessary  form  of  cultivation  to  be 
kept  in  view.  Once  let  the  Q.E.F.  be  clearly  under- 
stood by  them ;  once  let  them  be  made  fully  to  per- 
ceive that  'plowing'  is  merely  the  first  of  a  long 
series  of  means  toward  the  accomplishment  of  a 
particular  end,  that  end  being  the  production  of  a 
seed-bed,  of  suitable  depth  and  texture,  and  with 
the  soil  as  nearly  as  possible  inverted  in  its  bed  — 
and  I  do  not  think  they  will  be  long  in  setting  the 


212  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

steam-engine  about  its  proper  task,  in  the  proper 
way.  But  their  attention  is  distracted,  at  present, 
from  the  end  to  the  means.  They  are  taught  to 
think  that  the  plow  is  a  sine  qua  non — that  steam- 
cultivation  of  necessity  implies  steam-plowing,  and 
they  are  led  to  give  up  the  task  in  despair,  because 
they  are  at  fault  upon  a  false  scent. 

"We  have  many  rolling  implements  employed  in 
the  field,  but  we  have  only  one  instance  of  a  revolv- 
ing implement.  The  clod-crusher  and  the  J^orwe- 
gian-harrow  roll,  the  hay-tedding  machine  (one  of 
the  best  instruments  ever  invented)  revolves.  I  use 
the  words  somewhat  arbitrarily,  but  the  difference  I 
allude  to  is  very  important.  The  first  are  liable  to 
the  evil  of  '  clogging ;'  because  they  derive  their 
axis-motion  from  the  soil  as  they  pass  over  and 
press  upon  it.  This  action  must  not  be  confounded 
with  that  of  a  machine  which  has  its  cause  of  revo- 
lution within  itself^  independent  and  acting  upon 
the  soil  as  a  circular  saw  acts  upon  a  board,  or  the 
paddle-wheel  of  a  steamer  upon  the  water.  The 
teeth  of  a  saw  clear  themselves,  by  the  centrifugal 
motion  they  communicate  to  the  particles  they  have 
detached  from  the  substance  they  act  upon.  A  cir- 
cular 'cultivator'  steam-driven  will  do  the  same.  It 
does  so  more  effectually  according  to  the  speed  (of 


THE  PLAIN  "ENGLISH"  OF  IT.  213 

revolution)  and  the  state  of  the  soil.  This  last  in- 
cident is  as  it  should  be ;  for  it  is  not  desirable  that 
a  clay  soil  should  be  dealt  with  when  in  an  improper 
state  for  tillage;  and  one  great  advantage  of  such 
an  instrument  as  I  point  to  would  be  that  it  would 
so  immensely  enlarge  the  choice  of  a  suitable  period, 
by  its  compendious  accomplishment  of  the  whole 
work  of  culture. 

"My  object,  however,  is  not  so  much  to  advocate 
the  particular  mode  of  applying  Steam-power  which 
I  myself  suggest,  as  to  explain  the  grounds  on  which 
I  feel  more  and  more  strongly  assured  that  the  at- 
tempt to  employ  it  through  the  medium  of  the  plow 
must  be  eventually  renounced." 

"There's  one  thing,"  said  Mr.  Greening,  who  had 
been  listening  throughout  with  unusual  attention 
and  perseverance,  and  nodding  knowingly  a-t  the 
end  of  each  sentence  as  if  the  idea  was  steadily 
gaining  ground  in  his  mind, — "There's  one  thing 
that  you  haven't  mentioned,  and  on  your  own  side 
of  the  matter,  too.  The  finer  the  soil's  worked 
down,  the  greater  the  effect  of  the  manure :  of  that 
I'm  certain  sure ;  large  as  I  like  to  see  the  clods  on 
a  fallow." 

"I  was  afraid  you  would  have  taken  the  other  side 
of  the  question  on  that  point,"  said  I,  "on  which 


214:  CHEONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FAEM. 

a  good  objection  may  be  taken  —  and  answered, 
too ;  and  which  we  must  not  omit :  but  it  was  not 
because  I  had  said  my  say  out,  that  I  came  to  a 
pause ;  but  rather  because  I  felt  that  there  was  still 
so  much  unsaid,  and  I  am  too  tired  to  say  it  now, 
and  you  to  listen  to  it,  I  should  think.  Come,  it 's 
no  use  denying  it.  We  must  adjourn.  Besides,  I 
want  to  -hear  your  objections.  I  know  they  '11  rise 
thick  and  threefold,  when  you've  left  me.  When 
shall  I  hear  them;  to-morrow?" 

"To-morrow  let  it  be  with  all  my  heart !  I  doubt 
you've  given  me  a  bad  nightcap,  though!  When  I 
get  a  subject  of  this  sort  into  my  head,  it  sings  in 
my  ears  half  the  night :  and  when  at  last  I  do  go  to 
sleep,  I  dream  of  it  till  I  'wake  again.  Well!  'In 
for  a  penny,'  as  they  say :  so  I  shall  be  glad  to  hear 
it  out.  Maybe  you'll  finish  it  to-morrow.  I  don't 
think  I  shall  ever  look  at  a  plow  again  without 
thinking  of  you !  " 

And  Mr.  Greening  took  his  departure ;  not  more 
busily  impregnated  with  a  new  subject  than  he  left 
me  with  an  old  one :  for  of  all  the  powerful  stimu- 
lants to  deeper  thought  upon  a  subject  in  your  own 
mind,  what  so  powerful  as  the  first  sustained  eifort 
to  develop  your  antecedent  conceptions  upon  it  by 
the  slow  and  detailed  process  of  conversation,  and 


THE  PLAIN  "ENGLISH"  OF  IT. 


215 


that  with  a  not  too  easy  or  unobjective  listener? 
Idle  and  valueless  as  yet  as  the  unsmelted  Ore  is 
the  Thought  that  has  not  been  struck  out  into  the 
current  coin  of  simplest  words.  And  this  once 
accomplished,  who  shall  say  where  that  currency 
may  lead,  or  in  whose  hands  it  may  yet  thrive, 
hereafter  ? 


"  Incontinently  bent  on  their  baptism  of  native  mud." 


XXI. 

THE  «  STEAM-CULTIVATOR." 

WHAT  an  irresistible  tendency  there  is  among  men 
to  draw  each  other  in  caricature.  How  prone  we 
are  to  magnify  those  features  in  which  the  character 
of  another  differs  from  our  own !  I  doubt  not  that 
if  Mr.  Greening  had  described  our  late  interviews, 
("if  the  lion  had  been  the  sculptor")  our  readers 
would  have  been  at  least  as  much  amused,  the  other 
way.  I  should  like  much  to  see  the  "per  contra" 
that  he  would  have  drawn  out. 

I  am  justly  led  to  this  conclusion  because  my  notes 
of  our  further  conversations  show  how  completely  I 
had  under-rated  both  his  interest,  and  his  penetra- 
tion, in  the  subject  I  had  so  suddenly  broached 
before  him ;  taking  it  too  readily  for  granted,  that  a 
thoroughly  practical  man,  like  himself,  could  not 
stretch  his  imagination  to  the  point  required  to 
make  him  enter  into  my  views,  or  the  suggestions  I 
had  made. 


THE  "STEAM-CULTIVATOR."  217 

This  was  far  from  being  the  case.  He  had  heard, 
I  suspect,  and  interpreted  too,  after  his  own  fashion, 
every  word  I  had  said  and  read  to  him.  For,  after 
our  late-described  interviews, his  "trespasses,"  as  he 
called  them,  on  my  Farm  became  more  and  more 
frequent.  Whether  it  was  that  he  thought  the 
demerits  and  deficiencies  of  the  plow  were  more 
strikingly  to  be  seen  and  freely  studied  upon  my 
soil  than  on  his  own,  or  whether  he  reckoned  upon 
the  chance  of  hearing  them  more  boldly  outspoken, 
I  will  not  attempt  to  decide  :  but  for  some  reason  or 
other  I  soon  found  him  a  frequent,  and  by  degrees  a 
more  (if  I  may  venture  such  an  expression)  long- 
winded  listener.  IsTot  a  week  elapsed  since  our 
last  conversation,  when  a  rainy  day  drove  him  into 
my  den  for  shelter,  and  as  ready  a  prey  as  any  beast 
that  ever  roamed  the  wilds  of  agricultural  theory 
could  desire. 

"I'm  afeard,"  he  began,  after  ensconcing  himself 
in  the  very  same  chair,  with  one  of  the  very  same 
cigars,  opposite  the  same  fire-place,  and  in  precisely 
the  same  attitude — "I'm  afeard  it  won't  leave  off 
for  some  time.  I  should  like  to  hear  you  out,  sir, 
about  that  Steam-plowing — I  beg  pardon — steam 
not-plowing — 'cultivation' — anything  you  like  to 

call  it,  that  you  was  on  about  the  other  day.     I  do  n't 
10 


218  CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY  FARM. 

know  how  it  is,  but  it  seems  to  haunt  me  like. 
You've  done  me  harm,  ["Hal"?]  you  have  indeed! 
I  used  to  love  follering  the  plow,  and  see  it  heave 
up  the  furrow-slice  so  smooth  and  nice,  and  swelling 
the  rich  earth  as  it  swam  along,  "better  than  any 
thing  I  know  on  earth — except,  perhaps,  hearing 
my  little  Fanny  reading  when  I  come  home  sleepy 
at  nights, —  but  now — I  don't  know  how  it  is,  I 
seem  to  run  my  head  again'  it  every  time  I  see  it, 
on  stiff'  ground,  a-squeeging  and  pressing,  and 
kneading  its  way  along  :  it  gives  me  the  very  head- 
ache to  look  at  it ;  it  does,  really !  Now,  please  not 
to  mind  the  long  words,  for  once ;  but  let  me  hear  it 
on  to  the  end.  I  should  like  to  know  the  worst  on 
it — and  the  best,  if  there  is  any.  I  want  to  know, 
now,  really,  why,  if  Steam's  the  proper  thing — why 
it  has  n't  been  done.  They  do  most  things  by  steam 
now-a-days :  if  it  is  to  get  upon  the  fields,  why  don't 
it?  What  stops  it?" 

"You  have  asked,"  said  I,  "the  very  question  I 
ask  too — "Why  is  it  that  among  all  the  great  inven- 
tions of  the  day,  the  subject  of  CULTIVATION  BY  STEAM 
seems  to  hang  fire.  Not  for  want  of  thought  upon 
the  topic  ;  for  there  are  many  minds  full  of  thought 
about  it,  and  few  people  now-a-days  believe  the 
thing  impracticable :  indeed,  no  one  can  find  any 


THE  "  STEAM-CULTIVATOK."  219 

good  reason  why  it  should  be  so.  There  is  no 
particular  difficulty  or  peculiarity  about  the  mech- 
anism of  cultivation,  to  "forbid  the  banns"  be- 
tween the  soil  and  the  steam-engine  :  it  is  generally 
felt  that  the  match  will  take  place  some  day,  slow 
and  unpromising  as  the  courtship  may  seem  at 
present.  I  join  hands  in  this  belief;  and  in  the 
mean  time  ask  your  special  attention  to  these  prelim- 
inary points,  which  may  help  to  account  for  past 
delay,  and  possibly  to  advance  the  question  from  its 
present  silent  condition.  Silent,  because  invention 
is  apt  to  be  so.  Self-interest  keeps  it  so ;  and  in  the 
mean  time  a  generation  may  pass  by,  and  nothing 
be  practically  done  toward  a  consummation  which, 
once  accomplished,  it  requires  no  ghost  to  see  that 
Great  Britain  would  leap  ahead  in  agriculture  as 
much  as  her  mines  of  coal  and  iron,  and  her  still 
deeper  and  richer  mine  of  mechanical  skill  and 
improvement  have  led  her  to  do  in  every  art  and 
manufacture  upon  which  the  breath  of  steam  has 
been  brought  to  bear. 

Here  in  fact  lies  the  grand  motive  in  the  matter  ; 
and  one  so  emphatically  important  in  reference  to 
this  particular  application  of  steam-power  —  yet  to 
be  achieved — that  one  cannot  help  wishing  that  all 
who  really  think  about  it — who  are  not  of  that  class 


220  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FAKM. 

of  infidels  who  think  the  womb  of  invention  is  age- 
stricken,  and  that  nothing  is  possible  but  what  has 
been  done  —  would  come  into  committee  upon  the 
subject,  and  abating  a  little  of  that  exclusive  faith 
which  each  has  in  his  own  cleverness  and  chance, 
would  help  to  bring  in  this  tide,  as  the  tide  of 
human  progress  is  wont  to  come  in — not  by  one 
great  wave,  all  at  once,  but  by  a  great  many  waves 
after  and  upon  each  other. 

There  is  one  grain  of  comfort,  and  of  correspond- 
ing hope,  visible  already.  A  good  many  thinkers 
have  got  quit  of  the  steam-plow,  and  got  to  the 
spade :  that  is  something.  It  is  something,  I  repeat, 
to  have  got  to  the  spade ;  for  those  who  have  got 
thus  far  will  not  stay  long  there.  The  public  mind 
moves  slowly ;  but  once  in  motion,  the  inertia  once 
shaken  off,  and  the  vis  inertia  once  set  agoing,  it 
will  never  stop  till  it  reaches  the  goal. 

Again  and  again  be  it  repeated,  that  it  is  not 
plowing,  neither  is  it  digging,  that  we  want.  These 
are  only  means.  "What  we  want  is  the  end:  we 
care  not  for  the  process.  Give  me  A  SEED-BED  :  show 
me  the  soil  comminuted,  aerated,  and  inverted,  six 
or  eight  inches  deep,  and  I  will  not  ask  you  how  it 
came  so.  "What  does  that  matter  ?  If  you  wanted 
your  coffee  ground  for  breakfast,  to  a  certain  fineness 


THE  "  STEAM-CULTIVATOK."  221 

of  texture,  would  you  be  very  particular  to  ask 
whether  the  mill  that  crushed  the  fragrant  berry 
had  worked  by  horizontal,  vertical,  alternate,  elbow- 
crank,  or  by  circular  motion  ?  If  the  farmer  or  the 
gardener  could  only  have  his  seed-bed  made  ready 
for  him  as  fine  as  a  new  moleheap,  or  to  any  other 
coarser  texture,  according  as  he  wants  it,  do  you 
think  he  would  care  whether  the  soil  had  been 
first  cut  into  longitudinal  strips,  plow-fashion,  or 
into  square  cubes,  spade-fashion,  before  it  was 
finally  granulated  for  his  use  ?  Surely  the  one  is  as 
indifferent  as  the  other;  and  singularly  enough, 
both  offer  problems  far  more  difficult  to  the  steam- 
engine  (if  any  thing  can  be  called  so,)  than  the 
performance  at  once  of  the  ultimate  and  entire 
process  without  these  preliminary  forms  at  all. 

Until  steam-power  was  discovered,  this  possibility 
did  not  exist.  Wind  and  water  being  out  of  the 
question,  there  remained  nothing  for  it  —  no  other 
power  that  could  be  taken  into  the  field  —  but  men 
or  horses.  Plowing  or  digging,  then,  were  the  in- 
dispensable preliminaries  ;  there  was  no  getting  on 
without  them  ;  they  were  but  preliminaries,  it  is 
true,  the  former  leaving  every  thing,  the  latter  a 
great  deal  ( according  as  the  work  was  done )  to  be 
accomplished  afterward  to  complete  the  cultivation. 


222  CHRONICLES   OF   A  CLAY  FAKM. 

But  it  is  not  so  now.  Since  the  birth  of  the 
steam-engine  —  no  such  very  long  time  ago  —  the 
whole  elements  of  the  question  are  altered.  There 
exists  now  a  portable  power — not  limited  to  hori- 
zontal action  like  the  horse,  nor  to  vertical  action 
like  a  man  using  the  spade  or  the  hoe  —  which,  if 
merely  told  what  to  do,  will  go  and  do  it,  merely 
dropping  a  hint  into  your  ear  that  circular  motion 
is  its  favorite. 

But  the  willing  giant  stands  idly  panting  and 
smoking  :  for  nobody  can  agree  to  tell  him  what  to 
do.  One  says,  "Go  and  plow !  "  another  says,  "Go 
and  dig!"  each  mistaking  the  means  for  the  end, 
and  trying  to  yoke  this  youngest  born  of  human 
genius  to  the  peddling  routine  of  manual  or  equine 
capacity ;  out  of  the  very  perversity  of  backsight- 
edness  that  clings  to  forms  and  modes  which  be- 
longed to  the  implements  not  to  the  task — back- 
sightedness  that  would  with  equal  reason  puzzle  its 
brains  in  looking  for  the  pole  and  splinter-bar  of  a 
locomotive,  the  pendulum  of  a  watch,  or  the  paddle- 
boxes  of  a  screw-steamer. 

But  if  it  is  not  plowing,  and  it  is  not  digging, 
what  is  it?  "Go  to  the  Mole,  thou  dullard,"  (the 
old  proverb  might  be  travestied,)  "consider  her  ways 
and  be  wise  " —  who,  without  any  coulter,  share  or 


THE  "  STEAM-CULTIVATOR." 


mould-board,  without  spade,  hoe,  or  pickax,  leaves 
behind  her  in  her  rapid  track  a  finer  mould  than 
ever  RANSOME,  HOWARD,  or  CROSSKCLL — than  ever 
spade  or  rake  produced,  or  the  most  careful-handed 
gardener  chopped  up  to  pot  his  plants  with.  The 
very  rabbit  that  scratches  his  hole  in  the  ground,  or 
the  fox  that  scratches  after  him  — like  the  king-crab, 
to  eat  the  kernel  and  lie  in  the  shell  —  or  the  dog 
that  scratches  after  both  —  the  whole  tribe  of  "  claw 
foot,"  in  fact — had  scratched  hard  earth  into  soft 
mould,  before  ever  the  plow  or  the  spade,  or  even 
the  more  ancient  hoe,  had  broken  ground  on  this 
planet. 

Let  us  begin  from  the  beginning  :  let  us  take 
"  Cultivation "  itself  into  serious  thought  for  a  seri- 
ous moment,  and  analyze  it  into  its  simplest  elements, 
dropping  all  conventionalities  of  plodding  custom. 
What  is  it?  How  would  you  do  it,  if  you  had  nei- 
ther plow,  nor  spade,  nor  hoe,  nor  rake  to  help  you? 
With  the  same  tools  that  the  monks  of  La  Trappe 
used  to  dig  their  graves  with,  and  in  the  same 
manner !  If  the  mole,  the  rabbit,  the  fox,  the  dog, 
are  not  sufficient  indicators,  take  the  hand  of  a  man, 
glove  it  with  hardened  steel,  multiply  it  a  dozen  or 
twenty  times,  till  you  have  an  instrument  as  broad 
as  CKOSSKILL'S  clod-crusher,  each  hand  or  claw 


224  CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY   FARM. 

with  its  separate  arm  forming  the  radius  from 
a  central  shaft,  which  bristles  all  around  with  a 
forest  of  such  arms,  a  sort  of  revolving  BRIAREUS, 
not  rolling  —  let  that  be  especially  remembered  — 
but  steam-driven,  a  thousand  dog-power,  if  you 
please,  for  we  must  not  even  mention  horses,  or  we 
shall  drop  back  into  the  old  Scylla  and  Charybdis 
of  "traction"  and  of  "rolling," — two  ideas  to  be 
eschewed  like  poison. 

Let  us  suppose  the  picture  of  this  formidable- 
looking  cylinder  of  claws  to  be  sufficiently  described 
for  the  moment — reminding  one,  at  a  distant  view, 
of  a  half-breed  between  a  hay-tedding  machine  and 
a  CEOSSKTLL'S  clod-crusher — but  unlike  them,  funda- 
mentally distinct  from  any  and  every  instrument 
that  was  ever  seen  afield,  as  doing  its  work  not  by 
traction,  nor  by  its  rolling  weight,  but  DRIVEN  by  its 
axis,  as  the  steam-paddle,  the  circular-saw,  the 
driving-wheel  of  the  locomotive,  are  driven,  sup- 
ported by  its  own  apparatus,  and  abrading  the  soil 
with  its  armed  teeth,  first  cutting  its  own  trench, 
burying  itself  to  the  required  depth,  and  then  com- 
mencing its  onward  task,  tearing  down  the  ~bank 
(so  to  speak)  on  the  advancing  side,  canting  back 
the  abraded  soil,  earth's  sawdust,  "comminuted, 
aerated,  inverted  "  into  the  trench  it  leaves  behind. 


THE   "  8TEAM-CULTIVATOE."  225 

If  I  have  failed  in  making  the  picture  clear  or 
intelligible,  it  is  yet  not  that  about  which  I  care  so 
much,  as  to  "  draw  aside  the  curtain."  The  idea  of 
plowing  and  digging  stands  like  a  thick  blind  before 
the  whole  philosophy  of  the  subject,  and  screens  the 
inventive  mechanician  from  the  simple  application  of 
his  mind  to  the  Q.  E.  F.  ^  Thing,  to  T)e  done"~\  His 
faculties  are  clogged,  stupefied,  held  in  check  by  the 
pestering  contemplation  of  processes  that  enter  not 
necessarily  into  the  problem  to  be  solved,  or  need  ap- 
pear in  its  solution.  They  are  unessential  to  the  mat- 
ter. They  became  so  the  very  instant  the  steam-en- 
gine was  discovered  /  a  power,  and  the  only  one  we 
possess,  that  can  be  carried  to  the  field,  and  put  into 
an  agricultural  machine — like  the  main-spring  into  a 
watch  —  to  give  it  independent  intrinsic  action  with- 
in itself,  owing  nothing  to,  but  separate  entirely  from 
the  traction  and  progression  of  the  implement  along 
the  field.  Hitherto  there  is  not  even  the  attempt  to 
apply  it ;  it  has  never  had  a  chance.  Every  field- 
implement  we  have  works  5y  traction — like  the 
Pedometer  that  ticks  because  the  wearer  marches  : 
but  with  steam  for  our  main-spring  we  can  make  the 
watch  tick,  independent  of  the  wearer.  When  we 
understand  that,  when  we  have  in  idea  and  in  fact 

detached  the  work  of  cultivation  from  the  mere 
10* 


226 


CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 


progression  of  the  implement,  made  them  perfectly 
separate  and  independent,  so  that  if  you  ceased  to 
proceed,  your  "  coffee-mill "  would  still  be  at  work, 
and  only  wanting  fresh  coffee  to  grind  ;  then,  and 
only  then,  shall  we  have  laid  hold  of  the  end  of  the 
clue  that  leads  to  Cultivation  by  Steam  ;  for  then, 
and  only  then,  shall  we  have  begun  to  appreciate 
the  real  and  unique  value  of  the  new  agent  we 
possess.  To  suppose  that  it  would  gear  its  noble 
faculty  to  the  dragging  of  plows,  or  the  redoubled 
solecism  of  a  rolling  spade-machine,  is  to  transgress 
the  elementary  axioms  of  natural  law,  the  funda- 
mental relations  and  exactions  that  govern  all  phys- 
ical progress  and  discovery. 


'  The  willing  giant  stands  idly  panting  and  smoking." 


XXII. 

THE  SUBJECT  CONTINUED. 

I  CAN  call  to  mind  no  practice,  in  the  intercourse 
with  others,  more  improving,  sometimes  more  hu- 
miliating, than  the  attempt  to  explain  in  clear  words 
to  a  listener,  not  disposed  to  give  much  quarter,  an 
idea  with  which  one's  own  mind  has  been  long 
familiar.  A  large  portion  of  what  we  call  our 
"mind"  consists  of  the  Imagination,  a  proverbial 
deceiver,  painting  images  (as  its  name  implies) 
upon  the  retina  of  thought,  apparently  all  real,  but 
fading  into  dimness,  crumbling  often  into  the  utmost 
confusion  and  intricacy  under  the  attempt  at  delinea- 
tion by  the  tongue.  This  is  of  every-day  experience. 
But  there  is  another  traitor  not  so  commonly  ar- 
raigned and  brought  to  trial  —  the  memory.  What 
has  long  been  on  our  minds,  we  are  apt  to  regard  as 
we  do  those  faces  that  we  have  met  again  and 
again,  and  only  become  conscious  of  our  ignorance 


228  CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY  FAKM. 

when  we  have  occasion  to  address  the  wearers  by 
name.  "Talking  makes  a  ready  man,  reading  an 
exact  man,"  says  the  old  proverb.  That  laying  out 
of  a  subject  in  detail  which  talking  requires,  clothing 
it  in  simple  and  intelligible  language,  yet  illustrated 
with  analogies  and  metaphor,  suited  to  the  indi- 
vidual addressed,  is  an  exercise  in  itself  susceptible 
of  such  improvement  that  one  is  sometimes  tempted 
to  ask,  whether  language  owes  more  to  thought,  or 
thought  to  language. 

But  this  was  not  all.  In  the  conversations  that 
ensued  with  Mr.  Greening,  derived  from  my  origi- 
nal promise  to  him  to  put  this  question  of  Steam- 
cultivation  into  plain  English,  I  soon  felt  that  it  is  one 
thing  to  see  a  matter  as  plain  as  a  pike-staff  before 
your  own  eyes,  and  to  put  it  into  language  very 
simple  to  your  own  mind  prepared  to  understand  it, 
and  a  very  different  thing  to  make  it  intelligible  to 
those  who  have  never  given  any  express  attention  to 
it  before.  For  the  sake  of  the  importance  of  the 
subject,  I  will  try  to  restate  the  whole  question  ; 
dropping,  for  the  purpose  of  continuity,  the  dialogue 
form  in  which  the  subject  was  by  frequent  and  useful 
objections  on  his  part  made  to  develop  itself. 

Before  the   discovery   of   Steam-power,  and   its 
application  to  machinery,  there  was  no  sucJi  thing 


THE   SUBJECT   CONTINUED.  229 

as  a  mechanical  power  that  could  be  carried  about, 
and  applied  where  and  when  you  pleased,  except 
animal  power.  The  plow,  the  spade,  or  the  hoe, 
(with  their  varieties,)  were  the  only  possible  modes 
of  effecting  the  task  of  cultivation.  The  compara- 
tively recent  discovery  of  steam-power  altered  the 
condition  of  human  life  in  this  particular.  The 
modes  of  action  to  which  cultivation  was  before 
limited,  and  which  are  exemplified  in  the  use  of 
the  three  instruments  just  named,  became,  on  the 
discovery  of  steam,  no  longer  the  necessary  and  only 
modes  of  performing  the  act  of  tillage.  From  the 
nature  of  things  it  was  morally  certain  that  when- 
ever that  new  Power  was  applied  to  this  act,  it 
would  be  through  an  instrumentality  as  different 
from  the  plow  as  the  plow  was  from  the  spade.  If 
a  man  will  only  give  himself  the  trouble  to  think 
how  total  a  revolution  the  application  of  steam 
effected  to  the  navigation  of  a  ship,  and  the  locomo- 
tion of  a  carriage,  he  cannot  very  well  fail  to  see 
what  is  meant  by  the  saying,  that  a  new  power 
requires  a  new  process.  It  is  a  solecism  in  art,  as 
well  as  science,  to  attempt  to  yoke  steam  on  to  the 
plow.  There  is  no  affinity  between  them;  any 
more  than,  as  I  said  before,  between  a  horse  and  a 
spade. 


230  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

I  have  found  it  inexpressibly  difficult  to  get  th: 
leading  postulate  clearly  and  once  for  all  understood 
Till  it  is  so,  it  is  hopeless  to  attempt  to  proceed. 
The  idea  of  an  instrument  to  be  dragged  through 
the  soil,  as  the  plow  is,  from  one  end  of  the  field  to 
another,  poisons,  more  or  less,  not  every,  but  nearly 
every  effort  toward  steam  cultivation  I  have  seen. 
How  difficult  it  is  to  tmlearn ! 

"When  the  attempt  was  first  made  to  run  steam- 
carriages  on  common  roads,  it  was  soon  found  that 
however  good  a  macadamized  surface  might  be  for 
a  wheel  to  roll  upon,  under  a  carriage  drawn  by 
horses,  it  broke  away  into  a  perfect  gravel-bed,  when 
the  new  power,  instead  of  pulling  the  carriage,  which 
set  the  wheels  simply  rolling  underneath,  laid  hold 
of  the  wheel  itself,  and  produced  the  locomotion  of 
the  vehicle  by  forcibly  driving  the  wheels  round. 
The  very  best  road  gave  way  under  the  severe  fric- 
tion of  this  new  mode  of  producing  locomotion,  and 
so  did  the  tires  :  and  nothing  could  be  done  till  both 
road  and  wheel  were  made  of  solid  iron.  The  new 
power  required  a  new  process.  Instead  of  pulling 
the  carriage  it  drove  the  wheel,  and  in  driving  the 
wheel  it  tore  up  the  stones  even  of  a  granite  road. 

Let  ns  put  on  our  agricultural  spectacles,  and 
apply  this  parable.     When  Steam-power  is  brought 


THE   SUBJECT   CONTINUED.  231 

into  the  field,  (audiat  qui  aures  habet!)  it  will 
"  play  out  this  play  "  over  again.  Its  faculty  and 
virtue  consist  not  in  pulling  vehicles  or  implements, 
but  in  driving  wheels:  and  when  steam-driven 
wheels  will  tear  up  granite  roads  into  shingle  and 
gravel,  and  move  the  carriage  too,  ( for  so  it  did, 
only  not  fast  enough  for  modern  travelers,)  what 
forbids  the  hint  being  taken  by  the  "audax  Japeti 
genus,"  that  have  happily  applied  so  many  acci- 
dental hints  before,  and  the  same  refractory  giant 
being  set  to  rasp  up  cleverly  and  methodically  with 
sharpened  Mole-like  claws,  the  tender  soil,  when  he 
has  shown  his  ability  to  tear  so  tough  a  one  with  the 
mere  palm  of  Ms  hand?  And  what  forbids,  either, 
that  he  should  spare  off  a  little  of  his  redundant 
steam  in  moving  his  own  carcass  along  meanwhile, 
at  a  pace  of  little  more  than  half  a  mile  an  hour? 
"What  you  save  in  speed  you  gain  in  power ;"  and 
an  instrument  (as  broad  as  Crosskill's  Clod-crusher,) 
which  completes  the  whole  work  of  tillage,  as  it 
moves  along,  will  hardly  be  required  to  go  much 
faster.  At  that  speed  it  would  cover  four  acres  a 
day — not  of  "plowing,"  not  of  "  harrowing,"  not  of 
"rolling,"  not  of  scuffling,"  not  of  "rolling  again" 
" cross-plowing,"  " clod-crushing,"  "rolling  again" 
"ridging  up,"  "sowing,"  and  "harrowing  in,"  but 


232  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FAEM. 

of  all  these  epithet  processes  in  one  comprehensive 
act — and  word — Cultivation. 

Is  it  not  astonishing,  with  such  experiences  as  we 
have  before  us  in  England,  that  since  the  first  intro- 
duction of  Steam-power  to  the  notice  and  assistance 
of  mankind,  nobody  has  ever  yet  attempted  to  apply 
it  in  its  own  way  to  the  definable  and  simple  work 
of  cultivation.  It  is  put  to  cut  chaff,  to  make  saw- 
dust, to  granulate  powder,  to  make  pins'  heads,  to 
reduce  all  sorts  of  coarse  material  into  fine — and 
all  by  wheels  —  circular  motion,  and  nothing  else, 
for  nothing  else  it  will  accept  —  but  nobody  can 
persuade  their  minds  to  believe  that  by  the  self- 
same action,  and  no  other,  it  can  cut  up  a  seam  of 
soil  eight  inches  deep  and  six  feet  wide,  and  leave 
it  behind,  granulated  to  as  coarse  or  fine  a  texture 
as  the  nature  of  the  seed  or  season  may  require,  and 
inverted  in  its  bed.  It  is  not  plowing,  it  is  not 
digging,  it  is  not  harrowing,  raking,  hoeing,  rolling, 
scarifying,  clod-crushing,  scuffling,  grubbing,  ridg- 
ing, casting,  gathering,  that  we  want :  all  these  are 
the  time-honored,  time-bothered  means  to  a  certain 
RESULT.  That  result  is  —  a  seed-bed  :  and  a  seed-bed 
is,  simply  described,  a  layer  of  soil  from  six  to  twelve 
inches  in  depth,  rendered  fine  by  comminution,  and 
as  far  as  possible  inverted  during  the  process. 


THE   SUBJECT   CONTINUED.  233 

You  may  call  this  "theory,"  my  good  Mr.  Practi- 
cal, but  I  tell  you  it  is  TEUTH  :  simple,  obvious, 
philosophical,  practical  Truth.  Since  the  invention 
of  the  Steam-engine^  it  might  and  may  be  done  at 
one  process ',  as  easily  as  before  in  twenty ;  and  it 
will  be.  Before  we  depart  this  life,  we  shall  see 
one  more  wonder  moving  on  the  face  of  the  earth, 
something  of  this  form  and  fashion  —  to  wit — a 
complete  locomotive  engine  on  four  wheels,  the  fore 
pair  turning  on  a  transome,  the  hind  ones  fixed ; 
behind  them  (suspended)  a  transverse,  cylindrical 
shaft,  three  feet  in  diameter,  from  six  to  eight  feet 
long,  reminding  one  of  a  cross-breed  between  a 
clod-crusher  and  a  hay-tedding  machine,  armed 
with  case-hardened  steel  tine-points,  in  shape  like  a 
mole's  claw,  arranged  so  that  the  side-lap  of  each 
claw  may  cover  the  work  of  the  other,  and  no 
interval  or  ridge  be  left  uncut :  the  extremities  of 
the  cylinder  just  covering  the  wheel-tracks.  This 
cylinder  of  claws  you  will  see  raised  or  depressed 
at  pleasure  by  the  engine-driver,  and  adjusted  to 
slow  or  rapid  revolutions,  worked  either  by  cog- 
wheels, or  geared  from  the  drum  of  the  engine. 
That  is  the  "cultivator."  A  platform  from  the 
Engine  extends  over  it,  ending  in  a  sort  of  movable 
tail-board,  which  may  be  raised  or  depressed  at 


234  CHRONICLES   OF   A  CLAY   FARM. 

pleasure,  to  regulate  the  settlement  of  the  soil  which 
scatters  from  it.  The  revolution  of  the  cylinder  is 
not  against  but  with  that  of  the  wheels — not  drag- 
ging or  retarding,  but  rather  helping  the  advance  of 
the  whole  machine,  which  is  moved  slowly  forward 
by  a  detached  force  of  about  two  horse-power  from 
the  Engine, 

When,  at  some  future  day,  and  by  some  pen  not 
yet  out  of  straight  strokes  and  pot-hooks,  there  shall 
be  written,  for  the  edification  of  the  agricultural 
public,  an  historical  sketch  of  the  "  Rise  and  Pro- 
gress of  Steam  Cultivation,"  it  is  to  be  feared  that 
some  of  the  reflections  will  not  be  of  the  most  com- 
plimentary kind  to  the  genius  or  the  faith  of  the 
generation  that  has  embraced  nearly  in  one  experi- 
ence the  development  of  Steam  Navigation,  of  the 
Railroad  system,  the  Electric  Telegraph,  and  other 
kindred  appliances  in  the  many-pathed  field  of 
practical  science. 

"It  was  strange,"  we  may  suppose  our  future 
annalist  to  write,  "  that  amid  the  blaze  of  surround- 
ing discovery  in  the  arts  that  economize  the  labor 
and  advance  the  condition  of  man,  an  application 
of  steam-power  that  must  surely  have  pressed  with 
such  powerful  motive  and  exigency  on  a  period 
when  an  extensive  change  of  commercial  policy 


THE   SUBJECT  CONTINUED.  235 

seemed  especially  to  evoke  the  mechanical  resources 
of  the  kingdom,  by  way  of  set-off  to  its  often-urged 
disadvantages  in  climate  and  in  fiscal  burdens  — 
should  have  been  long  regarded  rather  with  the 
apathy  evinced  toward  the  cobweb  speculations  of 
dreaming  enthusiasm,  than  dealt  with  as  a  practical 
question  by  practical  minds.  "While  zealous  agri- 
culturists were  eloquently  excited  once  a  year  over 
the  weight  of  an  ox,  or  the  twist  of  an  improved 
mould-board,  'Science'  was  satisfied,  and  'Practice' 
seemed  to  tread  on  the  heels  of  perfection.  Under 
such  patronage,  '  Improvements '  in  the  established 
implements  of  tillage,  were  of  course  as  numerous 
as  the  moiety  of  twenty  acres  of  ground  could 
conveniently  accommodate  for  annual  Exhibition.  A 
revolution  impending  over  Tillage  itself  was  of 
course  the  last  thing  dreamt  of.  It  is  ever  so.  True, 
a  few  black  funnels  might  be  seen  smoking  in  the 
show-yard,  and  the  whirring  drum  of  the  steam- 
driven  Thrashing-machine  had,  thanks  to  the  pre- 
vious invention  of  a  certain  Scotch  lawyer,  made 
the  agrestial  mind  forget  to  expect,  or  its  prizes  to 
stimulate,  improvements  in  the  flail.  But  the  prin- 
cipal and  time-honored  act  of  agriculture  proper, 
of  cultivation  itself —  still  labored  under  its  ancient 
tribe  of  horse-adapted  implements.  The  Plow  and 


236  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

the  Harrow  were  still  in  the  ascendant ;  the  instru- 
ments of  equine  tillage  were  still  received  as  its 
essential  agents ;  and  people  who  would  have  smiled 
at  the  mechanical  curiosity  of  a  steam-^7^7,  gravely 
anticipated  the  day  when  some  such  combination 
would  be  achieved  for  the  darling  tool  whose 
Heaven-invoked  '  speed '  had  long  supplied  the  toast 
and  figure-head  of  agricultural  prosperity. 

"  Yet  it  can  hardly  be  wondered  at,"  our  aggra- 
vating Critic  will  continue,  "  that  men  should  have 
slowly  and  with  such  difficulty  eradicated  from 
their  minds  a  mode  of  tillage  so  long  compelled  by 
the  very  nature  and  necessity  of  animal-power: 
every  child  that  has  wept  and  smiled  over  the 
'Death  of  Cock-Robin,'  knows,  when  he  hears 

"  Who  '11  toll  the  bell  ? 

'  1,'  says  the  Bull, 

'  Because  I  can  pull,' " 

that  Mr.  Bull  was  guilty  of  a  pun  ;  that  the  'pull' 
of  a  quadruped  is  only  horizontal;  that  his  strength 
can  be  applied  in  no  other  way ;  and  that  when  you 
have  no  choice  left  but  horizontal  traction,  from 
one  end  of  the  field  to  the  other ;  a  mode  of  action 
which  commenced  when  the  spade  was  abandoned 
in  field-culture  for  the  plow,  and  which  was  to 
continue  so  long  as  horse-power  tillage  continued  : 


THE   SUBJECT   CONTINUED.  237 

and  no  longer  :  since  it  formed  ( as  the  spade  had 
already  shown )  no  necessary  element  of  cultivation, 
and  had  no  relevance  whatever  with  the  action  or 
capabilities  of  the  Steam-engine. 

"Steam-power  having,  however,  been  hitherto 
chiefly  employed  in  Manufactures,  and  its  versatile 
modes  of  application  being  unfamiliar  to  the  agri- 
culturist, we  can  scarcely  be  surprised,  that  even 
those  few  who  gave  a  serious  thought  to  the  subject, 
looked  upon  the  Steam-engine  rather  as  a  piece  of 
concentrated  horse-power  to  be  harnessed  as  best  it 
might  to  the  existing  horse-worked  implements,  than 
as  a  New  Agent,  whose  entry  on  the  scene  of  action 
enabled  him  to  reconsider  the  whole  philosophy  of 
Tillage,  to  analyze  it  into  its  elements,  to  see  what 
it  was;  what  it  had  l>een  when  confined  to  manual 
power  under  the  primeval  dynasty  of  the  Spade 
and  the  Hoe  :  what  it  was  under  the  advanced  but 
equally  special  limitations  of  animal  power,  as 
exhibited  in  the  Plow  and  every  other  implement 
of  draught ;  and  what  it  might  le  under  the  wider 
sphere  of  available  process  which  the  Steam-engine 
presented.  What  was  cultivation?  Did  Steam- 
power  offer  any  cheaper,  better,  or  more  direct  mode 
of  performing  it,  than  manual  or  animal  power  had 
done  ?  Could  it  accomplish  in  one  act  the  problem 


CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY   FAKM. 

of  converting  the  hard  clod  into  fine  soil?  Could 
it,  like  the  mole,  cut  a  seed-led  out  of  the  solid  f 
If  so,  why  entangle  it  with  implements  foreign  to 
its  nature,  unessential  to  its  action,  and  behind  it 
in  that  order  of  inventive  progress  whose  deep-cut 
label  is,  '  Vestigia  nulla  EETROESTJM  ? ' 

"But  the  Plow  had  left  its  rid ge-and-furrow  im- 
press not  more  in  the  fields  than,  alas !  on  the  mind 
of  the  agriculturist  of  that  day.  It  was  long,  and 
naturally  so,  before  he  could  bring  an  imagination 
pre-occupied  with  the  old-established  system  of 
field-culture,  to  recognize  its  impending  emancipa- 
tion from  the  whole  chain  of  subordinate  necessities 
exacted  by  the  employment  of  horse-labor.  The  old 
fable  had  become  reversed :  the  quadruped  was 
riding  the  man  ;  to  shake  him  off  was  now  the  diffi- 
culty!  For  a  century  after  its  invention,  the  Steam- 
engine  lay  stillborn  to  the  soil,  and  the  virtue  unap- 
preciated of  a  new  power  which  could  antiquate 
mere  implements  altogether,  and  convert  the  culti- 
vating agent  into  a  machine,  in  the  strict  sense  of 
the  word  ;  a  machine  whose  locomotion  across  the 
field  was  a  mere  collateral  incident,  not  a  means  / 
as  the  sheep,  or  ox,  walks  over  the  pasture  to  crop 
it,  but  does  not  crop  it  ~by  walking. 

"And  yet  it  was   somewhat  strange,  too,  that 


THE   SUBJECT   CONTINUED.  239 

recognition  should  have  been  so  tardy,  and  accus- 
tomed thought  so  ineradicable  on  this  point,  when 
we  reflect  that  modes  of  tillage  already  existed  so 
totally  and  specifically  different  in  action  from  all 
horse-worked  implements,  as  those  both  of  the 
Spade  and  its  more  ancient  congener,  the  Hoe;* 
and  that  the  perpendicular  and  very  effective  action 
of  these  manual  tools,  contrasted  with  the  farm- 
implements  of  draught,  might  have  dimly  suggested 
the  possible  discovery  of  other  means  of  cultivation 
as  different  from  all  these  as  they  were  from  each 
other.  Any  one  who  had  ever  seen  a  nutmeg  rasped 
away  into  fine  atoms  against  the  armed  surface  of  a 
grater,  or  saw-dust  scattered  in  heaps  from  timber 
by  the  teeth  of  the  circular  saw,  and  could  find 
room  in  his  imaginative  faculty  for  the  contempla- 
tion of  this  mechanical  process,  side  by  side  with 
the  agricultural  fact  that  a  seed-bed  is  only  a  layer 

*  In  the  Southern  Countries  of  Europe,  as  in  Italy,  Spain, 
and  Portugal,  and  in  the  offshoots  of  the  latter  —  Madeira 
and  Brazil,  the  Hoe  is  the  almost  exclusive  implement  of 
(  manual )  tillage.  The  Spade  is,  originally,  a  form  of  the 
Hoe,  adapted  to  more  northerly  climates,  where  the  moistness 
of  the  soil  increases  the  labor  of  cultivation  by  forbidding 
the  tread  of  the  workman  on  the  worked  land,  and  obliges 
him  to  stand  on  the  "  land-side  "  of  the  trench. 


240  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

of  comminuted  soil  a  few  inches  in  depth,  might 
surely  (one  should  now  suppose)  have  saved  the 
credit  of  his  generation  by  some  more  congenial 
suggestion  for  the  effectuating  of  tillage  by  Steam- 
power,  than  attempting  to  bind  it  down  to  an  appren- 
ticeship in  which  Plows  and  Harrows,  Rollers  and 
Scufflers,  or  even  the  spade,  were  still  to  figure  as  the 
rude  terms  of  the  Identure,  as  out  of  keeping  with 
its  genius  and  aptitude,  as  they  were  irrelevant  and 
non-essential  to  tillage  itself,  analytically  regarded, 
apart  from  its  conventional  modes  necessitated  by 
horse  or  hand  power." 

Such  will  be  the  kind  of  after  reflection  thrown  back 
upon  his  forefathers  of  this  generation  by  our  future 
agricultural  historian.  "It  is  true,"  he  will  be 
obliged  to  add,  "there  were  not  wanting  heaps 
of  patents  and  pretensions  crowding  in  confused 
succession  on  the  public  notice,  during  this  period 
of  mental  vacuity  and  decrepitude  of  invention. 
Wherever  there  is  a  lack  of  grain  there  are  plenty 
of  weeds  to  fill  the  gaping  space.  There  were  plow- 
dragging  engines,  stationary  and  locomotive  ;  there 
were  'plow-shares  on  circular  frames,'  'revolving 
spades,'  and  all  the  train  of  piebald  monstrosities, 
and  biform  incongruities  that  mark  those  periods  of 
false  gestation  and  miscarriage  in  the  annals  of 


THE   SUBJECT   CONTINUED.  24:1 

invention,  when  would-be-discoverers,'dashing  blind- 
fold at  unconsidered  combinations,  are  each  pro- 
foundly busy  putting 'new  wine  into  old  bottles;' 
never  devoting  one  serious  hour  of  study  to  the 
simple  elements  of  the  problem  they  undertake — 
the  mechanical  means  necessary  to  accomplish  it ; 
but,  (like  the  scribe  DICKENS  tells  of,  who  ventured 
a  treatise  on  Chinese  Metaphysics,  by  looking  out 
' China ,'  and  ' Metaphysics?  in  the  Cyclopaedia!) — 
taking  a  plow  and  a  steam-engine — or  a  spade  and 
a  steam-engine — as  the  inevitable  sire  and  dam  of 
the  fore-determined  'cross,'  plunged  headlong  inte 
the  labyrinth  of  complex  and  solitary  contrivance 
how  to  join  things  which  Nature  had  put  asunder." 


-"velut  agri  Somnia,  vanse 


Fingentur  species ;  ut  nee  pes,  nee  caput  uni 
Reddatur  formse.       *       *       *       * 
Infolix  operis  Summa,  quia  ponere  totum 
Ncsciat  !" ¥ 

Such,  we  may  anticipate,  will  be  the  storm  of 

*  "  Like  a  sick  man's  dreams,  ideas  shall  be  formed  without 
any  regard  to  reality :  so  that  neither  feet  nor  head  shaH 
be  given  to  the  figure  to  which  they  properly  belong.     *     * 
And  he  will  be  unsuccessful  in  the  completion  of  his  work, 
because  he  does  not  give  just  proportions  to  the  whole. 

[HORACE,  Ars.  Poet.,  vs.  7,  $5. 


242  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FAKM. 

keen  reflection  showered  over  our  graves  by  some 
writer  at  the  end  of  this,  or  beginning  of  next 
century,  who  looks  back  upon  the  origin  of  steam- 
agriculture  from  just  such  a  point  as  we  do  now  on 
that  of  steam-navigation ;  who  will  be  as  familiar 
with  the  sight  of  soil  pulverized  a  foot  deep,  in  one 
act,  by  surface  abrasion  from  a  steam-driven  cylin- 
der [armed  with  the  Talparian  claw  that  "  works  i' 
the  earth  so  fast,"  and  solves  in  the  dark,  beneath 
our  very  feet,  a  harder  problem !]  as  we  are  with 
ships  of  a  couple  of  thousand  tons,  driven  through 
the  water  like  a  duck  with  her  web-feet  at  work 
beside  or  behind  her,  in  either  case  obedient  to  the 
steam-law  of  circular  motion. 

*  We  have  forborne  to  make  a  single  remark  to  interrupt 
this  original,  eloquent,  and  convincing  dissertation  on  the  ap- 
plication of  steam  power  to  the  most  important  operation 
connected  with  agriculture,  the  turning  up  and  pulverization 
of  the  soil,  but  imperfectly  done  by  the  plow,  until  the  sub- 
ject, so  far  as  wielded  by  our  accomplished  author,  was  ex- 
hausted. We  conceive  that  his  views  are  entirely  correct  and 
practicable,  both  as  philosophically  applied  to  the  soil,  and 
the  mechanical  principles  by  which  the  labors  should  bo 
directed;  and  that  such  application  will  be  made  at  no 
distant  period,  instead  of  the  imperfect  use  of  the  plow, 
although  claiming  to  bo  an  almost  perfect  implement  of  its 
kind,  we  have  no  doubt  whatever.  The  introduction  of  steam 


SUBJECT   CONTINUED.  243 

as  a  motive  power  in  farm  labor  is  still  but  little  known  in 
England,  and  not  at  all  understood  in  America.  It  has  as 
yet  proved  too  cumbrous  in  weight  and  volume,  and  expen- 
sive in  construction  for  successful  application.  The  idea 
advanced  by  our  author,  that  the  plow,  by  its  downward 
pressure  upon  the  subsoil  beneath,  as  well  as  its  lifting 
process  in  detaching  the  earth  from  its  natural  bed,  operates 
injuriously  upon  such  subsoil,  and  consequently  to  the  preju- 
dice of  the  growing  plants  which  follow,  in  preventing  them 
from  striking  into  what  should  be  a  soft  mould  below  the 
track  of  the  share,  has  occurred,  probably,  to  but  few  of 
those  who  follow  it.  Yet,  on  reflection,  it  is  apparent,  as  the 
hard  polished  surface  of  the  subsoil  must  prove.  Such  diffi- 
culty the  steam  "  cultivator  "  will  alone  remove. 

That  the  use  of  the  implement  in  question  will  require  a 
clear  soil,  free  from  stones  of  any  size,  is  also  apparent ;  but 
when  we  contemplate  the  breadth  of  soil,  even  in  our  stony 
districts,  which  is  already  free,  or  might  be  made  so  at  a 
comparatively  moderate  expense,  and  that  the  vast  ranges  of 
fertile  soil  in  the  new  states  are  peculiarly  adapted  for  such 
cultivation  in  their  natural  condition,  it  is  scarcely  within  the 
power  of  calculation  to  estimate  the  economy  of  labor  and 
increased  production  that,  would  flow  from  such  an  applica- 
cation  of  power.  Without  the  "reaper"  and  "thrasher" 
already,  the  immense  harvests  of  the  cereal  grains  in  our 
country  could  scarcely  be  gathered  and  garnered  without  a 
draft  upon  the  manual  labor  of  the  wide  districts  in  which 
they  are  produced,  which  would  seriously  affect  their  value ; 
and  if  to  the  aid  of  those  implements  could  be  introduced 
the'steam  cultivator  for  the  proper  digging  up  and  pulveriza- 
tion of  the  soil,  and  the  casting  of  the  seed,  what  a  mass  of 


CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

human  and  brute  labor  might  at  once  be  released  from  the 
most  toilsome  drudgery  of  the  farm,  to  be  devoted  to  other 
valuable  objects  !  It  would  create  an  entire  revolution  in  our 
agriculture  in  its  more  perfect  and  timely  cultivation  of  the 
Boil ;  it  would  double  our  crops  and  increase  the  comfort  and 
happiness  of  our  laboring  population  in  a  wonderful  degree. 
The  newly  applied  power  of  the  caloric  engine,  by  its  cheap- 
ness and  simplicity,  could  be  brought  within  the  management 
of  almost  the  common  laborer;  and  the  division  of  labor 
consequent  on  so  vast  an  acquisition,  would  reduce  our 
"cropping"  to  a  system  as  perfect  and  certain  as  that  of 
the  reaper  or  the  thrasher.  Every  crop  could  be  sown  in 
season  on  soil  thoroughly  prepared ;  the  only  drawback  to  the 
highest  cultivation,  so  far  as  casting  the  seed  into  the  earth 
is  concerned,  would  bo  removed;  and  the  harassing  solicitude 
of  the  husbandman  on  that  branch  of  his  labors,  could  be 
transferred  to  the  important  subject  of  keeping  his  lands  in 
their  requisite  state  of  fertility. 

We  may  partake  of  the  enthusiasm  of  our  author  in  the 
contemplation  of  a  subject  so  pregnant  with  blessings,  but 
when  accomplished,  as  wo  are  confidant  it  will  be  —  and  at 
no  distant  time  either  —  the  benefits  arising  from  the  discov- 
ery of  steam  itself,  in  its  application  to  other  branches  of 
industry,  will  be  scarcely  less  than  may  result  from  its  taking 
precedence  of  the  plow  in  the  cultivation  of  the  soil.  Four- 
fifths  of  the  population  of  the  United  States  cultivate  tho 
earth  for  a  subsistence,  and  the  motive  cultivator,  in  taking 
precedence  of  the  plow,  will  effect  a  reduction  of  at  least 
twenty  per  cent.,  or  one  fifth  in  tho  labor  thus  applied.  The 
cotton,  tobacco,  tho  rice  and  the  sugar  lands,  all  alike  will,  or 


THE   SUBJECT   CONTINUED.  245 

vnay  bo,  affected  thus  favorably.  No  fear,  either,  that  the 
market  for  horses,  mules  and  oxen  will  bo  ruined.  If  they 
decline  in  value  for  one  object,  they  may  be  devoted  to  other 
objects  :  as  were  the  tens  of  thousands  of  horses  on  the  great 
stage  routes  which  the  railroads  have  superseded,  and  never 
bore  so  high  a  price  as  now.  And  the  coarso  grasses,  too, 
which  feed  them — they  will  all  be  wanted  for  objects  not  now, 
perhaps,  thought  of;  and  the  lamentations  of  the  timid  man, 
who  sees  nothing  but  "  ruin  "  in  all  such  improvement,  as  his 
father  before  him,  saw  in  turnpike  roads  and  canals,  will  pass 
for  nothing. 

There  have  been  sundry  attempts  made  at  the  steam  plow ; 
but  it  has  been  a  plow  solely,  and  no  other  principle  sought 
than  that  of  applying  steam  to  operate  it  as  it  now  operates 
by  draft  —  defective,  of  course,  in  the  objections  which  have 
been  remarked.  American  ingenuity  has  given  the  grain- 
reaper  to  England,  which,  although  but  a  year  there,  is  rap- 
idly introducing  a  revolution  in  her  harvests ;  and  it  is  hardly 
too  sanguine  a  hope  to  indulge,  that  some  equally  inventive 
genius  to  him  who  first  built  the  reaper,  may  avail  himself 
of  the  hints  so  clearly  thrown  out  by  our  author,  and  succeed 
in  perfecting  an  instrument  that  will  yield  imperishable  re- 
nown to  himself,  and  confer  untold  benefits  upon  the  agricul- 
ture of  the  country. — ED. 


XXIII. 
MACHINERY  OF  THE  CLAYS. 

"MATTER  is  infinitely  divisible,"  says  the  philoso- 
pher. " Cultivation  consists  in  pulveration"  says 
Tull.  "  The  greater  the  comminution  of  the  soil, 
that  is,  the  exposure  of  its  internal  superficies,  the 
greater  its  power  to  absorb  Ammonia,  the  essence 
of  manure,  from  that  great  storehouse  of  fertility — 
the  atmosphere,"  says  the  chemist.  "Soils,"  says 
the  geologist,  consist  of  three  elements  :  Clay,  Sand, 
and  Lime ;  the  more  suitably  they  are  inter-combined 
the  more  fertile  the  resulting  combination." 

This  looks  simple  enough.  Yet  in  the  judicious 
application  of  these  few  truths  lie  the  great  practical 
problems  of  Husbandry !  All  truth  is  simple  : 
"Simplicity  is  the  test  of  Truth."  Yet,  like  the 
three  primary  colors,  "Red,"  "Yellow,"  and  "Blue," 
bright,  clear,  and  simple  as  they  are  to  the  eye,  how 
infinite  their  varieties  of  combination  ;  what  scope 
for  judgment,  or  for  error,  in  their  admixture,  or 
that  of  their  secondaries ;  what  ample  room  for 


MACHINERY   OF   THE   CLAYS.  247 

blunder,  what  diversity  of  apparent  "accident" 
or  mischance,  what  damage  of  unlooked-for  incident, 
and  unallowed-for  circumstance!  What  open  path- 
less wastes  for  the  blunderer  and  the  empiric,  what 
narrow  and  difficult  steeps  for  the  student  who  has 
the  heart  to  climb! 

Oh  Agriculture !  thou  science  of  sciences  without 
a  School,  thou  Philosophy  without  a  "  Porch,"  (even 
for  shelter ! )  thou  University  of  unexamined  gradu- 
ates ;  all  "Masters,"  and  no  "Students" — when  will 
thy  "degrees"  be  better  recognized,  thy  principles 
more  truly  studied,  thy  "privileges"  be  better 
appreciated,  for  being  the  better  understood.  When 
will  men  consent — condescend — to  LEARN —  an 
Art  that  claims  a  share  of  light,  and  illustration, 
and  practical  advancement,  from  every  physical 
science  that  has  sprung  into  being,  since  Bacon 
traced  out  knowledge  to  its  source,  and  Chemistry, 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  MATTER,  gave  the    best  of  pOSthu- 

mous  illustration  to  that  great  inductive  theory 
that  rests  all  knowledge  on  the  one  sole  basis  of 
Experiment.* 

*  And  yet,  "  Schools  of  Agriculture "  are  looked  upon  by 
our  sapient  "  farmer  "  legislators  as  the  Utopian  theories  of 
visionary  men,  and  unworthy  the  patronage  of  the  State 
Governments  !  —  ED. 


248  CHKONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FAEM. 

"When  that  day  comes — when  the  living  chemistry 
of  the  soil  is  accepted  and  understood,  not  as  an 
amusing  and  probable  speculation,  the  vaguely  sug- 
gestive subject  of  a  "  Lecture  "  before  a  patronizing 
Council ;  but  as  a  solid,  working-day,  every-day 
practical  fact  —  then  the  Mechanics  of  Agriculture 
will  not  be  far  behind !  Then  the  "  touching  tru- 
isms" of  Tull  —  the  Galileo  of  agricultural  science, 
the  Luther  of  modern  husbandry —  struggling  single- 
handed  against  a  whole  dark  age  of  ignorance  and 
banded  prejudice — will  reach  the  "promised  land" 
he  saw  and  pointed  out  with  the  finger  of  the  seer, 
but  was  never  allowed  to  enter.  Blending  into  the 
truest  of  union  with  the  after-discoveries  of  Davy, 
De  Candolle,  Liebig,  Boussinghault,  and  our  own 
not  less  deserving  "Way,  and  Johnstone,  and  others 
of  distinguished  note — his  theory  of  "Cultivation" 
will  propound  matter  of  deep  thought  and  combined 
action  equally  to  the  chemist  and  mechanician.* 

*  Future  practice  in  cropping,  followed  by  cultivation  on 
true  principles,  we  hare  not  the  least  doubt,  will  prove  tbat 
the  actual  capacity  of  the  earth  to  produce  is  yet  but  faintly 
understood.  When  the  sword  shall  bo  beat  into  the  plow- 
share —  no ;  but  bended  and  welded,  as  they  say  that  horse- 
nails  and  wire  are  bended  and  welded  into  the  finest  barrels 
of  the  finest  fowling  pieces  —  the  spear  into  the  pruning 


MACHINERY   OF   THE   CLAYS.  249 

"When  the  simple  mechanical  idea  of  pulveration, 
comminution,  subdivision,  or  by  whatever  other  long 
name  men  may  please  to  understand  it,  shall  be 
seen  in  its  chemical  meaning,  as  connected  with  the 
food  of  plants,  the  "pasture  of  roots,"  as  Jethro 
Tail,  with  appropriate  metaphor,  described  it — then 
the  claim  and  application  of  the  Steam-engine  will 
be  made  out  and  recognized,  and  the  name  of  James 
"Watt  will  be  found  as  important  to  agriculture  as 
that  of  Humphrey  Davy. 

It  is  a  mere  question  of  time.  "We  travel  slowly  : 
and  like  lazy  wheelers,  throw  back  our  ears  and 
bite  the  pulling  horse  ;  but  if  ever  the  shadow  of  a 
coming  event  was  visible  beforehand,  even  to  the 
unimaginative  eye,  this  of  the  true,  mechanism  of 
Cultivation  is  one  that  is  beginning  to  be  visible. 
Call  the  Seer  "  visionary,"  if  you  please.  Yisionary ! 
of  course  he  is  visionary !  it  is  his  place  and  office, 
his  duty  and  profession  to  be  so,  and  bear  the  con- 
sequence !  He  sees  in  "  vision ; "  it  is  by  far-sighted 
vision  that  he  catches  sight  of  the  "  man's  hand  " 

hook,  and  the  nations  of  the  earth  learn  war  no  more,  as  we 
devoutly  trust,  in  the  Providence  of  God,  that  time  may 
come,  the  teeming  millions  that  then  inhabit  the  earth  will 
marvel  at  the  rudeness  of  the  "ancients,"  as  we  shall  then  be 
considered,  in  their  modes  of  cultivation. 
11* 


250  CHRONICLES   OF  A  CLAY   FARM. 

in  the  horizon,  which  others  cannot  see,  and  will 
not  believe  till  it  touches  their  eyeballs.  And  then 
they  will  swear  they  always  saw  it,  and  will  have 
forgotten  that  they  ever  didn't  see  it.  The  man 
was  never  yet  found  that  would  head  a  deputation 
to  carry  the  world's  recantation  and  apology  to  the 
derided  prophet,  whose  derided  prophecy  has  come 
true.  With  the  advent  of  the  Fact,  (lies  out  the 
prophet's  only  distinction  —  to  be  ridiculed.  Such 
was  ever  his  fate  ;  and  will  be,  to  the  end  of  time  ; 
varied  only  by  the  politer  form  and  phase  that 
civilization  gives  to  persecution. 

Yet,  in  the  present  active  progress  of  invention, 
the  transition  is  so  rapid  between  one  phase  of  our 
industrial  condition  and  another,  that  the  difficulty 
of  inducing  men  to  realize  the  possibility  of  a  com- 
ing discovery,  seems  almost  to  tread  upon  the  heels 
of  the  after  difficulty  of  recalling  the  memory  of  a 
deficiency  that  has  been  supplied.  The  paradox  of 
to-day  becomes  the  truism  of  to-morrow.  And  in 
spite  of  all  her  wonderful  advancement  in  arts  and 
manufactures,  in  spite  of  all  her  great  names  in 
every  department  of  practical  science,  there  is  no 
country  where  both  these  phases  of  mind,  apparently 
so  inconsistent  with  each  other,  co-exist  more  perti- 
naciously, more  permanently,  than  in  England 


MACHINERY  OF  THE  CLAYS.          251 

The  truth  is  that,  opposed  as  they  appear  to  be, 
they  are  the  two  sides  of  one  and  the  same  character, 
a  character  eminently  and  essentially  practical, 
which  cannot  recognize  any  thing  but  what  is,  and 
will  consent  to  look  neither  into  the  future  nor  the 
past  with  a  very  patient  gaze.  We  smile  at  the 
imaginative  habit  of  mind  of  the  German,  and  the 
precipitate  quickness  of  the  Frenchman ;  yet  in  fact 
through  sheer  practical  industry,  we  surpass  in 
effective  progress  the  dreams  of  the  one,  and  the 
quick  conceits  and  anticipations  of  the  other. 

But  inestimably  valuable  in  result,  this  national 
character  makes  invention  excessively  difficult,  ex- 
cept where  it  drops  in  as  it  were  in  the  course  of 
business,  suggests  itself  to  the  mind  of  the  workman, 
and  in  a  workman-like  way,  to  ease  him  in  his  task, 
or  to  shorten  a  process  done  for  the  thousandth  time 
before  the  abbreviating  link  in  the  chain  of  practical 
cause  and  effect,  forced  itself  upon  his  notice.  Any 
thing  like  a  priori  investigation  of  a  problem  —  ele- 
mentary view  of  the  principles  lying  at  the  root  of 
a  process  —  is  the  rarest  source  of  invention.  Thus 
it  is  that  a  clever  machine  makes  the  workmen 
employed  upon  it  intelligent ;  as  the  insect  takes  its 
color  from  the  leaf  it  feeds  on.  Discovery  follows 
discovery  in  rapid  succession ;  and  each  room  in  a 


252  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FAKM. 

cotton  mill  or  manufactory — we  are  informed  as  we 
pass  through — presents  an  accumulation  of  little 
additions  and  improvements,  a  hive  of  ingenuity  as 
well  as  industry,  all  resulting  as  it  were  spontane- 
ously from  the  suggestive  influence  upon  the  work- 
man of  the  machine  that  at  once  employs  and 
instructs  him. 

But  it  is  not  so  in  agriculture.  The  educational 
effect  of  the  Steam-engine  upon  those  it  employs,  so 
strikingly  visible  in  manufactures  whose  date  is  of 
yesterday,  has  not  here  begun  its  gracious  operation. 
Here  the  new  power  has  not  yet  come  in  to  suggest 
new  processes.  The  hind  plows  as  his  fathers 
plowed,  as  the  Roman  plowed,  as  Jthe  Egyptian 
plowed ;  and  even  with  less  advantage ;  for  in  the 
dry  soils  and  climates  of  Rome  and  Egypt,  the 
plow  was  an  apter  instrument  of  cultivation  than  in 
our  damp  soil  under  a  northern  sky. 

True,  a  better  machinery  has  found  its  way  into 
the  more  intricate  task  of  thrashing  out  the  grain, 
and  from  that  it  has  more  recently  crept  backward, 
from  the  last  operation  of  thrashing  out  the  grain, 
to  that  of  reaping  it.  For  it  is  curious  to  notice,  in 
passing,  that  it  has  begun  at  the  latter  end  of  the 
farmer's  labor  —  a  significant  token,  perhaps,  of  its 
ultimate  direction  and  success,  in  the  earlier  details 


MACHINERY   OK   THE   CLAYS.  253 

of  field  work.  The  Flail  was  the  first  to  give  way  : 
and  by  the  ingenuity  of  Menzies,  the  revolving 
drum  of  the  Thrashing-machine,  beating  out  the 
grain  by  continuous  circular  motion,  was  substituted 
for  the  alternate  strokes  of  the  flail,  (just  as  in 
navigation,  the  circular  Paddle  took  place  of  the 
back-and-forward  action  of  the  Oar,)  while  the 
horse-power  was  concentrated  round  a  pivot,  the 
nearest  approach  horse-power  has  made  to  what  we 
commonly  understand  by  the  word  Machinery. 
This  point  achieved,  the  introduction  of  the  Steam- 
engine  to  that  branch  of  farm  operations  was  at 
once  made  easy.  The  right  motion  existed  before 
the  Steam-engine  was  brought  to  bear  upon  it. 

Once  let  this  be  done  for  clay-soil  cultivation : 
once  let  all  that  has  been  said  and  written  and 
proved  about  the  properties  of  such  soil,  and  the 
properties  of  the  atmosphere,  the  habits  of  plants 
and  instincts  of  roots,  condense  into  an  act  of  mech- 
anism whose  aim  and  object  shall  be  the  most  per- 
fect subdivision  that  can  be  effected  at  a  single 
operation  ;  and  the  conquest  of  the  clays  is  achieved. 
It  will  then  be  seen  that  none  but  a  PORTABLE  power 
could  accomplish  it  —  that  its  practicability  lay 
hidden  in  the  womb  of  the  future,  till  the  Steam- 
engine  appeared,  and  manual  and  horse-power  were 


254:  CHRONIOLIiS   OF  A   CLAY  FARM. 

severally  discarded,  the  one  to  the  garden,  the  other 
to  the  road,  where  locomotion  from  place  to  place 
is  a  real  and  primary  object  of  the  power  and 
mechanism  employed. 

The  infinitely  graduated  varieties  of  soil  that  exist 
between  the  lightest  sand  and  the  stiifest  clay, 
preventing  as  they  have  done  that  marked  line  of 
different  treatment  that  a  more  rigid  contrast  of  the 
opposed  qualities  of  sand  and  clay  would  have 
suggested — together  with  the  further  variations  of 
"temper,"  alternating  with  the  conditions  of  wet 
and  dry — have  been  too  much  perverted  to  the 
result  of  making  the  agriculturist  a  Jack-of-all-trade. 
He  goes  out  of  a  light-soil  farm  into  a  clay,  or  vice 
versa,  and  plunges  his  share  into  the  new  element 
with  as  much  unconcern  as  his  wife  puts  her  duck 
eggs  under  a  hen  to  be  hatched  and  educated. 
Plump  goes  the  little  brood  of  changelings  into  the 
first  pool  of  water,  incontinently  bent  on  their  native 
mud,  to  the  consternation  of  their  astounded  mother, 
who  vainly  plies  her  claw  in  scratching  on  the  sandy 
shore  for  unsuited  food,  croaking  out  her  frantic 
warnings  to  the  contumacious  family  of  webfoot. 
"With  about  as  intelligent  a  philosophy  as  she  exhib- 
its under  such  distressful  and  hopeless  circumstance, 
has  many  a  plow  been  stuck  into  the  clays.  But 


MACHINERY   OF   THE   CLAYS.  255 

nothing  can  express  the  truth  in  shorter  phrase  than 
that  of  old  Dobson. . 

"I  tell  you,  Sir,— It's  a  different  trade!"  * 

*  While  the  systematic  division  of  labor  is  gradually,  yet 
surely  accomplishing  both  cheapness  and  perfection,  in  the 
mechanic  arts,  the  agriculturist  goes  daundering  along,  as  of 
old,  ready  to  try  his  hand  at  any  thing  and  every  thing,  either 
in  soil,  cultivation,  or  crop,  as  it  may  happen ;  applying  his 
"  experience"  to  each,  as  they  may  chance  to  come  in  his 
way,  and  yet  confident  that  he  is  instinctively  endowed  with 
the  requisite  knowledge  to  master  them  all.  It  is  an  unwel- 
come remark  to  make,  but  it  is  nevertheless  true  —  and  truth 
must  out  —  that  there  is  no  profession  under  heaven  so  little 
understood,  and  which  the  majority  of  those  dependent  upon 
it  so  little  care  to  understand,  in  its  science  and  in  its  princi- 
ples, as  agriculture  !  Look  at  the  every-day,  practical  com- 
mentary of  the  farmer  himself  (in  competent  circumstances) 
upon  his  own  profession  —  a  man  proud  of  his  position  too, 
as  a  tiller  of  the  soil  —  and  see  to  what  it  amounts:  He 
has  three  sons.  The  "  brightest,"  in  his  own  estimation,  must 
be  "  educated ; "  that  is  to  say,  go  to  college  —  forget  all  his 
early  farm  associations  and  attachments,  and  prepare  to  enter 
into  one  of  the  "  professions,"  crowded  already  into  the  se- 
verest competition,  and  where  incessant  exertion,  and  a  pecu- 
liar talent  are  required  to  achieve  any  success  whatever.  The 
"  sharpest"  must  be  a  "  merchant,"  or  get  his  living  "  by  his 
wits " —  too  often  meaning  the  faculty  of  overreaching  his 
neighbor;  while  the  "dull"  plodding  boy  —  if  the  father 
be  so  fortunate  as  to  have  such  a  one  —  probably,  in  reality, 


256  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

!N"o  wonder,  then,  that  "  the  best  form  of  the  Plow 
is  still  a  matter  of  disagreement."  It  must  ever  be 
so,  as  long  as  Clay  and  Sand  are  things  as  opposed 
in  nature  to  each  other  as  positive  and  negative.  A 
stiff  clay  under  a  moist  climate,  the  greater  its  me- 
chanical disadvantage,  and  its  intrinsic  chemical 
superiority,  (and  both  are  fully  admitted,)  the  more 
it  seems  to  call  for  a  revolution  in  its  mode  of  cul- 
ture, for  a  system  peculiar  to  itself.  In  the  arts,  as 
well  as  in  morals,  "Difficulties  are  opportunities." 

the  best  of  the  three,  must  know  nothing  beyond  what  can 
be  gathered  at  the  nearest  school,  learn  his  father's  trade  — 
no,  it  is  not  a  "  trade/'  it  comes  by  nature  —  and  be  a  farmer. 
Was  there  ever  more  mistaken  action  in  a  father  toward  his 
children  ?  Educated  they  should  be,  to  the  very  top  of 
their  faculties ;  and  so  educated  as  to  command  the  teeming 
earth  to  yield  its  treasures  to  the  application  of  skill,  labor, 
and  science,  working  together  in  harmonious  effect  upon 
soils  of  any  description  whatever,  which  may  come  under 
their  control  —  for  we  have  little  doubt  that  any  soils  exist, 
(we  do  n't  mean  rocks,)  which,  by  a  reasonable  outlay  of  skill 
and  capital  upon  them,  may  not  be  made  subservient  to 
profitable  cultivation. — ED. 


XXIV. 
CONCLUSION. 

DAY  after  day,  month  after  month,  year  after  year, 
the  labor  of  the  Husbandman  begins  afresh.  It  is 
without  end,  middle,  or  beginning.  It  defies  all  the 
"  Unities  "  of  Time,  Place,  and  Action.  And  as  its 
nature  is,  so  must  be  its  everlasting  development, 
literary  as  well  as  otherwise.  To  give  it  a  some- 
what livelier  tongue,  to  rescue  it,  at  least  for  an 
occasional  hour,  from  a  tone  and  treatment  which 
under  the  boasted  title  of  "practical,"  would  scare 
away  from  its  deeply  interesting  discussion  all  that 
has  adorned,  as  well  as  advanced,  so  many  other 
equally  laborious  and  less  naturally  attractive  pur- 
suits, was  the  motive  that  suggested  the  too  desul- 
tory chronicle  of  deeds,  of  words,  of  thoughts,  that 
these  pages  have  imperfectly  recorded.  A  story 
without  an  end,  a  soliloquy  without  a  speaker,  a 
dialogue  without  a  denouement,  and,  what  is  worse 


258  CHRONICLES   OP   A   CLAY  FAKM. 

than  all,  a  "Farm  to  let,"  without  a  Tenant !  Such 
is  the  discursive  and  informal  shape  taken,  as  of  its 
own  accord,  by  a  series  of  extracts  from  a  journal 
extending  over  many  years,  and  of  which  it  will  be 
enough  if  he  who  reads  shall  haply  say,  he  "  could 
have  spared  a  better  "  tale. 

But  though  it  break  and  baffle  every  rule  of  lite- 
rary composition ;  though  it  leave  every  interest 
unsatisfied,  every  curiosity  un quenched,  let  it  not 
be  deficient  in  the  one  intransgressible  rule  of  har- 
mony —  to  end  in  the  key-note  in  which  it  began  : 
and  so  doing,  let  it  speak  for  itself,  at  least  with  one 
consistency,  and  leave  upon  the  ear  one  simple  and 
abiding  chord  that  may  link  it  with  pleasant  memo- 
ries, and,  if  more  and  better  yet  than  this  may  be 
hoped  —  may  lighten  and  sustain  the  solitary  hour 
of  some  future  toiler,  striving  all  alone — and  far 
away  from  suitable  converse  and  encouragement,  to 
solve  the  tedious  problem  presented  by  a  difficult 
soil,  and  what  is  more  difficult  to  cure  or  cope  with, 
intractable  opinions,  and  minds  that  no  argument 
can  reach,  no  evidence  assure.* 

Bowed  by  an  affliction  for  which  life  contains  no 
cure,  and  calendaring  his  remaining  years  of  earthly 

*  Usually  a  greater  bar  in  the  way  of  individual  enterprise 
than  all  natural  obstacles  put  together. — ED. 


CONCLUSION.  259 

solitude  as  a  schoolboy  marks  off  the  weary  list  of 
weeks  that  must  intervene  before  the  joyful  hour 
that  shall  restore  him  to  all  that  he  has  lately  parted 
from  —  the  writer  of  these  pages  was  fain  to  welcome 
the  emprise  of  a  task,  which  might  have  scared 
away,  as  indeed  it  has  done,  any  to  whom  life  was 
not  so  dead,  that  the  only  thing  that  could  rise  again 
upon  it  was  —  a  Blister. 

Precisely  this  was  my  condition  when,  to  the 
amazement  of  that  surrounding  world  called 
"Friends,"  and  the  consternation  of  that  surround- 
ing gallery  of  criticism,  one's  own  tenantry,  I  ven- 
tured on  the  solitary  occupation  of  a  farm  whose 
desolate  and  repulsive  features  had  been  sufficiently 
portrayed,  and  with  little  of  exaggeration.  Steeped 
to  the  eyes  in  all  those  notions  of  science  and  exact- 
ness which  a  working  experience  at  the  Universities, 
and  "  those  Temples  twain,  Inner  and  Middle,"  may 
be  supposed  to  infuse  into  the  brains  of  younger 
sons,  I  plunged  into  my  task  with  all  that  sanguine 
and  pedantic  enthusiasm  best  known,  in  farming, 
under  the  expressive  title  of  "Fire-edge."  "A 
blessed  thing,"  I  have  before  said,  "  is  the  untaught 
boldness  of  youth ! "  a  blessed  thing  in  its  way,  and 
in  its  time  and  place.  It  is  as  much  intended,  and 
has  its  appointed  task,  in  the  great  Order  and 


260  CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY   FAKM. 

Economy  of  things,  as  the  most  cautious  sagacity  and 
profoundest  experience  of  advanced  life.  "  There  is 
that  scattereth  and  yet  increaseth  : "  and  He  who 
appointed  Life  as  an  advancing  experience,  appoint- 
ed every  part  of  it  to  accomplish  and  vindicate  its 
appropriate  phase  and  character. 

So  now  I  feel  it,  whether  I  look  back  over  the 
enterprise,  labor  and  amusement  of  years  gone  by, 
or  whether  I  look  over  the  comparatively  reclaimed 
acres  and  shrub-embosomed  homestead  of  the  once 
dreary  spot  it  was  my  privilege  to  find  "  thrown  upon 
my  hands"  at  a  moment  when  the  drearier  waste 
within  defied  the  outer  landscape.  Could  the  scene 
be  presented  to  me  again,  with  the  aspect  it  once 
wore,  I  should  hardly,  even  with  the  bought  economy 
of  experience,  have  the  boldness  to  attack  it ;  but  if 
compelled  to  do  so  by  duty  or  necessity,  the  only 
difference  in  my  course  would  be  a  broader  and 
more  comprehensive  plan,  founded  upon  a  deeper 
reliance  on  the  instincts  and  judgment  which  the 
chilling  timidity  and  discouraging  language  of  sur- 
rounding practice  casts,  in  every  district,  across  the 
path  of  the  improving  owner. 

Whence  this  timidity  and  discouragement? 

"With  the  attempt  to  answer  this  important  ques- 
tion my  task  shall  be  concluded  ;  and  the  personal 


CONCLUSION.  261 

experience  of  a  land-owner  occupying  the  most 
difficult  of  his  own  farms,  and  striving  to  "  sound 
the  bass  string"  of  the  matter,  by  assuming  the 
actual  circumstance  and  position  of  one  of  those 
whose  interests  it  was  his  duty  to  study  and  under- 
stand, shall  be  stated,  with  such  reflection  as  most 
suggests  itself  to  one  who,  while  his  spare  shelves 
were  filling  with  "  Agricultural  Journals,"  and  the 
works  of  Tail,  Mills,  Liebig,  Johnstone,  and  others 
"  of  that  ilk,"  still  kept  an  eye  upon  his  law-books.* 

*  Our  accomplished  lawyer,  as  well  as  instructive  and 
interesting  author,  here  gives  us  the  very  gist  of  the  duties 
of  a  large  landholder  and  true  agriculturist.  Not  as  usually 
understood  in  the  United  States —  the  farming  out  his  acres 
in  such  a  way  as  to  grind  the  utmost  dollar  out  of  an  ignorant 
and  impoverished  tenantry,  and  the  tenantry  in  turn  grinding 
the  scanty  substance  out  of  the  continually  exhausting  soil ; 
but  duties  as  they  should  be :  to  examine  the  actual  condition 
of  his  lands  in  the  constitution  of  their  soil,  their  applica- 
bility to  certain  varieties  of  crops,  the  best  modes  of  their 
cultivation,  and  the  expenditure  of  the  necessary  amount  of 
capital  thereon  — in  short,  their  improvement  throughout,  in 
the  best  and  most  profitable  manner.  So  long  as  the  propri- 
etor of  farming  lands  sets  himself  up  on  a  higher,  unsympa- 
thizing,  downward-looking  position,  than  they  who  draw  their 
subsistence  from  his  acres ;  scorns  to  investigate  the  subjects 
appertaining  to  his  own  resources,  and  the  consequent  welfare 


262  CHRONICLES   OF   A  CLAY   FARM. 

The  evil  of  retarded  and  discouraged  investment 
in  the  soil  lies  deep,  and  dates  far  back.  It  is  not 
the  fault  of  the  Farmer :  he  is  the  subject,  the  time- 

of  his  tenants ;  and  neglecting  them,  seeks  his  chief  associa- 
tions with  men  whoso  tastes  and  avocations  conform  to  his 
own,  practically  ignoring  the  occupation  on  which  he  relies 
for  his  support,  and  with  which  it  should  be  his  highest  pride 
to  claim  fellowship ;  so  long  will  he,  in  such  position,  and 
with  such  practice,  be,  as  he  richly  deserves  to  be,  a  sufferer 
in  purse  and  fortune ;  in  a  false  position  to  himself,  and,  in 
the  estimation  of  right  thinking  men,  a  recreant  to  the  duties 
of  one  who,  living  fairly  up  to  the  mark  of  his  calling,  in  reality 
holds  the  very  highest  rank  in  usefulness  that  a  substantial 
citizen  can  hold  in  any  country  —  the  rank  of  an  independent 
landholder. 

We  purpose  no  eulogy  upon  agricultural  life.  All  under- 
stand it ;  all  know  what  it  is,  who  really  know  any  thing  in 
an  extended  sense.  But  to  the  man  of  acres  —  the  large 
landholder,  it  does  concern  him  to  pay  far  more  attention 
to  his  "  profession "  than  he  usually  does,  and  what  it  would 
be  disgraceful  and  absolute  ruin  in  the  incumbent  of  any 
other  profession  or  trade  in  the  land  not  to  pay.  In  this,  he 
but  simply  discharges  his  duty  to  himself  and  his  family,  to 
society,  to  his  country,  and  to  posterity  —  a  debt  he  honestly 
owes  them  all,  and  with  which  he  is  charged  by  the  possession 
of  a  larger  share  of  the  world's  goods  than  is  meted  to  many 
others  —  no  matter  how,  whether  by  the  accident  of  birth,  or 
the  exercise  of  his  own  faculties,  he  has  acquired  them. 


CONCLUSION.  263 

grown  and  created  result  of  the  Legislation,  and 
Custom  with  the  force  of  legislation,  that  have  made 
him  what  he  is,  and  invested  him  with  a  step-mother 
relation  to  the  soil.  By  the  Law  of  Primogeniture 
applied  to  Land  alone  of  all  other  kinds  of  property 
and  capital,  you  have  set  on  foot  in  this  country 
a  system  which  has  nearly  reached  its  climax 
in  the  amassing  and  aggregation  of  land  into  the 
hands  of  few  and  large  owners.*  The  ancient 
yeoman,  the  owner  of  his  own  farm,  is  becoming  or 
become  an  extinct  genus  animalium.  By  the  enor- 
mous and  factitious  costliness,  delay,  and  difficulty 
attending  the  Transfer  of  land,  increasing  in  an 
inverse  ratio  with  the  acreage,  (for  the  relative 
cost  of  "title"  to  an  acre  is  beyond  all  comparison 
with  that  of  a  hundred,  and  of  a  hundred  in  like 
manner  with  a  thousand,)  you  have  secretly  clenched 
and  fortified  the  process  which  entail  and  primogen- 
iture had  openly  avowed  and  established;  and 
rendered  it  impossible,  on  the  common  principles 
of  prudence  or  economy,  for  any  one  to  buy  land 
(except  for  building)  otherwise  than  in  large,  and 
increasingly  larger  quantities.  The  tendency  is 
not  stationary;  it  is  still  going  on.  The  man  of 

*  Happily,  this  bitter  truth  has  no  application  to  the  Uni- 
ted States.— -ED. 


264  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 

small  or  moderate  capital  is  becoming  every  day 
more  and  more  effectually  ousted  from  the  possibility 
of  ownership  in  "the  earth"  which  "was  made 
for  all."  * 

You  point  to  France  and  Belgium,  where  an 
opposite  law  compelling  subdivision,  with  still 
more  rapid  evil  tendency  exists ;  and  talk  about 
"political  expediency,"  and  the  mischief  of  "mor- 
cellement"  But  must  you  rush  into  one  extreme  to 
avoid  the  other?  or  is  your  timid  intelligence  so 
scared  that  it  cannot  pause  to  distinguish  between  a 
tyranny  which  enforces  subdivision,  and  the  middle 
course  which  would  allow  land,  like  every  other 
form  of  capital,  to  adapt  itself  to  human  need  and 
circumstance,  and  wholesomely  to  exist  in  great  and 
small  proportions?  Or  is  your  political  philosophy 
of  such  a  school  as  to  leave  you  in  the  supposition 
that  you  have  the  MORAL  RIGHT  to  "  capitalize "  the 
earth,  and  disfranchise  seventy-nine  eightieths  of 
the  inhabitants  of  this  country  by  "Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment," and  the  "Custom  of  Conveyancers?" — [for 
it  is  authoritatively  said  (and  there  are  no  statistics 
to  disprove  it!)  that  the  owners  of  land  in  Britain  do 

*  It  is  a  strange  fact  that  the  number  of  landholders  in 
Great  Britain  is  not  half  so  groat  at  the  present  moment  as 
a  century  ago. — ED. 


CONCLUSION.  265 

not  number  above  two  hundred  aud  fifty  thousand, 
out  of  a  population  of  twenty  millions !  ] 

Mark  the  consequence.  Instead  of  the  soil  being, 
as  it  was  meant  to  be,  the  first  and  best  of  Savings' 
banks  for  capital  of  every  size ;  to  the  Peasant  and 
the  Yeoman,  as  well  as  the  Duke  and  the  Squire, 
you  assume  the  audacious  office  of  readjusting  natu- 
ral and  common  right,  and  pronounce  for  a  system 
which  agglomerates  land  into  hands  that  may 
monopolize,  but  after  all  cannot  themselves  use  it, 
and  cut  down  the  whole  interest  of  the  rest  of  the 
"  agricultural  community  "  to  the  rank  and  position 
of  "Tenant  farmers."  They  do  not,  as  a  class, 
penetrate  the  folly  or  the  mischief  of  it ;  they  are 
"  to  the  manner  born,"  and  think  it  "  all  right,"  if 
they  could  only  get  "Tenant-right ; "  (as  if  the  hirer 
of  an  article  of  limited  supply,  could  have  any 
"right"  but  what  the  owner  pleases  to  give  him!) 

But  then  a  LEASE!  What  is  the  use  of  a  Lease 
for  the  purpose  of  investment,  unless  it  be  of  long 
duration  2  Nay,  it  is  often  urged  against  leases, 
that  under  a  good  landlord  farms  pass  from  father 
to  son  and  grandson,  better  without  a  lease  than 
with  one  :  then  why  not  as  property  at  once!  Why 
keep  up  the  form  and  farce  of  "  ownership,"  if  its 

very  excellence  consist  in  a  virtual  surrender  of  its 
J  12 


266  CHRONICLES  OF  A  CLAY  FARM. 

exercise,  except  to  receive  the  "dividends"  half- 
yearly,  under  the  name  of  "  Rent,"  and  pay  annually 
for  the  "  repair  of  premises  you  never  occupy  ?  * 

"Not  that  there  are  wanting  many  instances  of 
improving  Tenants  and  liberal  Landlords.  Thank 
Heaven,  the  worst  laws  are  modified  in  practice  by 
the  common  sense  of  mankind,  as  well  as  the  best 
evaded,  by  its  ingenuity.  It  is  the  enormous  and 
unnecessary  substitution  of  "  tenancy"  for  ownership 
that  is  here  spoken  of — the  territorial  mapping  of 
the  country  into  dukeries  and  squiredoms,  the 
impounding  of  the  soil  out  of  the  action  of  free 
investment,  and  compression  of  its  redundant  and 
unexplored  capabilities  within  the  complicate  tram- 
mels of  a  fiction — the  fiction  of  an  owner  that 
does  not  occupy,  and  an  occupier  that  does  not  own. 

Why  should  this  be?  Why  should  law,  the  in- 
stant it  applies  to  Land,  depart  from  its  simplicity 
and  even-hand edness  by  making  land,  alone  of  all 
other  forms  of  property  and  capital,  (that  fall  under 
its  occasional  operation  by  intestacy  or  disputed 
right,)  an  exception  to  the  general  rule  of  fair  and 

*  We  would  commend  our  author  to  the  twelve  year  lease 
law  of  the  state  of  New  York,  as  the  extent  of  the  letting  of 
agricultural  land.  A  wise  and  a  salutary  law  it  is. — Er 


CONCLUSION.  267 

equitable  division?  In  the  freest  of  all  free  coun- 
tries, where  freedom  is  "  the  Law  of  the  land,"  why 
should  not  "the  land  itself  be  free?"  "Why  is  it  that 
nobody  will  take  the  pains  to  understand  the  ques- 
tion enough  to  see  that  "  primogeniture  "  is  a  thing 
which  families  may  make  for  themselves  if  they 
please,  like  heirlooms  ;  but  which  the  Law  has  no 
more  to  do  with  than  with  the  descent  of  my  Lady's 
Jewels  to  the  next  "  my  Lady,"  though  under  the 
Statute  of  Distribution  of  the  effects  of  Intestates, 
they  would  have  been  treated  as  personalty,  and 
divided  accordingly. 

Again  and  again  be  it  impressed,  and  understood, 
that  it  is  not  the  compulsory  division  of  land  by 
law  that  is  here  advocated.  It  is  merely  the  assimi- 
lation of  it  to  every  other  form  af  capital,  favoring 
neither  its  aggregation  nor  partition,  leaving  it  to 
assume  its  natural  proportions  and  relation  to  the 
wants  and  habits  of  society,  as  the  law  actually 
does  in  the  case  of  every  other  article  in  which 
Industry  invests  its  savings,  and  concentrates  its 
results.  Wrap  yourself  in  the  triple  armor  of  Cus- 
tom, Prejudice,  or  Feudalism,  admirer  of  Primogen- 
iture-Jy-Zaw  /  but  know  that  every  great  and 
accredited  writer  on  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  from 
Adam  Smith  to  John  Mill,  maintains  the  Freedom 


268  CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY   FARM. 

of  land  from  the  feudal  shackles  of  long  entail  and 
primogeniture-by-law,  as  the  prime  and  fundamental 
rule  of  Justice  to  society  in  the  matter  of  the  Soil. 
The  change  that  we  want  is  but  little,  but  that  little 
underlies  and  interpenetrates  the  whole  economy  of 
agriculture  as  a  national  business ;  and  renders 
every  acre  uncultivated,  or  half  cultivated,  through 
the  operation  of  legal  trammels  upon  the  owner,  a 
robbery  upon  the  Laborer,  the  Capitalist,  and  ulti- 
mately on  the  public  purse.  It  is  the  first,  and  the 
most  natural  of  Savings'-banks  to  the  humble,  as 
well  as  of  Investments  to  the  wealthy  capitalist.  It 
is  endowed  with  the  most  natural  and  versatile  apti- 
tude to  the  capabilities  of  both ;  it  belongs  to  the 
Spade  as  well  as  the  Plow.  It  is  evident  as  an 
instinct  to  every  mind,  and  needs  neither  proof  nor 
argument,  that  the  soil  is  the  "primest,  eldest," 
investment  of  our  capital ;  to  risk  our  national  earn- 
ings and  accumulation  in  any  other  channel  till  this 
field  is  first  exhausted,  is  a  course  that  men  may 
indeed  be  driven  to  by  the  operation  of  foolish  laws 
or  customs,  but  which  few,  from  either  will  or  cir- 
cumstance, would  voluntarily  choose.  It  needed  no 
small  ingenuity  of  folly,  no  small  "method  in  our 
madness  "  to  produce  that  timidity  and  reluctance 
of  investment  in  the  soil  which  the  disposable  capital 


CONCLUSION.  269 

of  this  rich  country  exhibits.  It  is  almost  vain  to 
argue  against  &  feeling.  Once  make  the  cultivators 
of  the  soil  of  a  country/^/,  as  a  body,  that  in  the 
soil  itself  they  have  really  no  interest  beyond  its 
annual  produce,  and  you  poison  agriculture  at  its 
source.  Shallow  draining,  shallow  cultivation, 
shallow  reckonings,  and  shallow  knowledge  of  his 
business,  are  not  naturally  inherent  in  a  man, 
because  he  is  a  "Tenant-farmer;"  but  in  a  country 
where  the  law  reigns  happily  supreme,  erroneous 
laws  applied  to  the  land,  make  it  come  to  appear 
BO.  And  this  has  been  the  case  with  us  ;  and  that 
in  two  ways,  first  by  the  enormous  and  factitious 
expense  of  legal  proceedings,  pressing  with  every 
form  of  costliness,  and  ingenuity  of  iucumbrance 
upon  the  soil,  saddling  every  landed  estate,  in  ad- 
dition to  the  owner,  the  clergyman,  the  tenant,  the 
laborer,  the  poor,  with  the  maintenance  of  its  Law- 
yer,— and  secondly  by  refusing  to  the  vendor  and 
purchaser,  that  last  resource  of  inherited  penury 
and  embarrassed  ownership,  a  free,  speedy,  and  in- 
expensive mode  of  Transfer.  The  periodical  ran- 
sacking which  the  musty  muniments  of  a*n  intermin- 
able "  Title"  undergo  to  enable  a  few  acres  of  land  to 
change  hands  ;  to  say  nothing  of  those  monotonous 
occasions,  death  and  marriage,  or  the  complete 


CHRONICLES   OF   A   CLAY  FARM. 


revision  of  the  whole  matter  whenever  a  mortgage  is 
required — form  altogether  a  Tribute7of  such  oppres- 
sive magnitude,  that  Protection  for  the  land  from 
foreign  competition  is  a  dream  indeed,  compared  to 
the  reality  of  the  much-desired  Protection  from 
"  Law."  To  fully  develop  and  expose  the  extent  to 
which  our  antiquated  feudal  system  of  Tenures,  our 
conflicting  institution  of  "  legal "  and  "  equitable  " 
estates,  our  secret  and  prolix  conveyances,  and  com- 
plicated settlements,  operate  as  a  charge  upon  the 
land,  a  drain  upon  the  resources  of  the  Owner,  an 
injury  and  virtual  confiscation  to  the  Tenant  and 
the  Laborer,  would  be  to  write  the  heaviest  satire 
upon  the  struggle  for  Protection  that  has  ever  yet 
been  showered  upon  a  Parliamentary  party  power- 
less only  for  error,  but  powerful  to  achieve,  if  they 
only  willed  it,  the  completest  satisfaction  for  the 
repeal  of  the  Corn-laws  which  an  important  body 
could  command,  or  an  intelligent  community  ap- 
prove. Do  what  you  will  for  land,  this  lies  at  the 
bottom  of,  and  completely  surpasses  in  importance 
all  other {k  Improvements."  Free  the  soil  from  the  pes- 
tilent redundancy  of  parchment,  that  the  obsolete 
necessities  and  antiquated  forms  of  centuries  have 
gathered  around  it,  and  more  will  be  accomplished 
for  its  increase  in  commercial  value,  its  preference 


CONCLUSION.  271 

as  a  field  for  the  investment  and  employment  of 
capital,  its  promotion  of  human  skill  and  invention, 
its  contribution  to  the  employment  and  the  happi- 
ness of  the  greatest  number,  than  all  the  mere  phys- 
ical improvements  that  could  be  enumerated  or  de- 
tailed, were  every  "  Clay  Farm  "  in  merry  England 
to  supply  its  "  Chronicle."* 

*  This  severe  and  richly  merited  rebuke  to  the  landed 
system  of  Britain  will  not  only  impress  its  entire  justice  upon 
the  American  mind,  but  cause  it  to  swell  in  thankfulness  to 
the  superior  wisdom  of  the  founders  of  our  American  institu- 
tions, who  have  placed  the  landed  system  of  this  country 
so  far  in  advance  of  that  which  exists  in  Great  Britain  ;  and 
which  she  must  inevitably,  in  time,  abandon,  although  most 
reluctantly  it  may  be  done,  to  the  adoption,  as  near  as  cir- 
cumstances will  admit,  of  a  system  akin  to  our  own.  Grasp- 
ing, illiberal,  and  overbearing  as  the  British  system  is,  yet  it 
has  been  guided  by  an  enlightened  policy  in  developing  the 
highest  resources  of  the  soil  by  the  aid  of  vast  capital  ex- 
pended in  its  improvement  and  cultivation.  Restricted  within 
narrow  limits,  a  teeming  population  has  demanded  the  utmost 
stretch  of  human  ingenuity  and  invention  to  aid  in  the  pro- 
duction of  life-sustaining  elements  within  their  own  territory  ; 
and  in  this  a  sagacious  and  powerful  state  policy  has  illus- 
trated its  wisdom.  On  the  contrary,  an  almost  boundless 
stretch  of  fertile  territory,  free  to  enterprise  and  capital, 
almost  as  the  light  of  heaven,  with  no  restrictions  to  its 
alienation,  and  no  immediate  incentive  to  its  monopoly,  the- 


272 


CHRONICLES   OF  A   CLAY  FARM. 


American  has  been  inclined  to  regard  the  possession  of  land 
as  of  secondary  importance  to  his  welfare,  so  long  as  a  suf- 
ficiency of  the  world's  goods  of  other  description  were  within 
his  roach.  Our  lands  are  cheaply  won,  and  far  too  cheaply 
valued;  not  in  dollars  and  cents,  but  in  thoir  importance,  as 
constituting  that  attachment  which  every  good  citizen  should 
cherish  toward  the  soil  of  his  country.  Hence  the  due 
improvement  of  the  soil  has  been  underrated,  and  as  a  matter 
of  course,  neglected.  Let  the  subject  be  better  understood. 
Lot  every  man  who  has  position  in  the  community  in  which 
he  dwells,  be  his  profession  or  calling  what  it  may,  turn  a 
part  of  his  attention  to  the  soil  and  its  improvement,  and  he 
will  add  not  only  to  his  pleasurco  and  his  amusements,  but 
ho  will  become  a  wiser  man,  and  a  better  member  of  society, 
and  a  more  patriotic  citizen. 

Wo  part  with  our  instructive  author  with  unfeigned  regret. 
His  concluding  chapter,  in  the  deep  feeling  it  evinces  in  its 
subject,  and  his  admirable  commentary  upon  the  state  policy 
of  England  is,  to  his  own  countrymen,  by  far  the  most  valu- 
able of  all  which  he  has  written — EDITOR. 


HORSE   SHOE   TILE. 


4  Jin.  $18  per  1000 
3J  "      15  "      " 
2J "      12  "      * 


3  in.  $18  per  1000 

a «    ia  «•    « 


Section  of  Land  before  it  is  drained. 


1.  Surface  Soil.  3.  AVater  of  Evaporation. 

2.  M'ater  Table.  4.  Water  of  Capillary  Attraction. 

5.  "Water  of  Drainage  or  Stagnant  Water. 


Section  of  Land  after  it  is  Drained. 


1.  Surface  Soil. 

2.  Water  Table. 


3.  Water  of  Capillary  Attraction. 

4.  Water  of  Drainage  or  Stagnant  Water. 


SKETCH  OF  THE  WHEAT  PLANT 

at  different  periods  of  Vegetation,  showing  the  depth  to  which  the  fibrous 
roots  can  ho  generally  traced  in  free  mould,  taken  from  a  drawing  in 
the  Drumjuoud  Agricultural  Museum  in  Sterling. 


PRIZE  ESSAYS. 

JAN.,  1852. 


EXPEEIMENTS  IN  DRAINING. 

BY  JOHN  JOHNSTON. 

To  the  Executive  Committee  of  the 

New  York  State  Agricultural  Society: 

GENTLEMEN — In  your  list  of  premiums  presented 
to  the  farmers  of  this  State  for  competition,  at  the 
winter  meeting  in  January  next,  a  premium  is 
offered  for  experiments  in  draining. 

Having  long  esteemed  a  good  system  of  drainage 
as  important  to  good  farming,  and  being  well  con- 
vinced that  it  would  much  increase  the  profits  on 
most  farms,  I  have  made  tile  drains  on  my  farm  in 
Seneca  county,  extending  to  full  sixteen  miles  in 
length.  The  farm  is  situated  on  the  rich  clay 
ridge  which  extends  from  the  Seneca  river  south- 
erly to  Tompkins  county,  a  ridge  of  land  devoted 
chiefly  to  the  cultivation  of  wheat.  I  was  many 
years  ago  satisfied  of  the  necessity  of  removing  in 


274:  EXPERIMENTS   IN  DKAINING. 

some  economical  way  the  surplus  water  which  satu- 
rated the  soil,  and  too  often  interfered  with  the 
growth  or  maturity  of  the  crop,  not  only  with  wheat, 
but  also  with  other  grain  and  clover.  My  first 
efforts,  for  more  perfect  drainage,  were  made  in 
1835,  when  I  imported  a  pattern  of  Drain  Tile  from 
Scotland,  and  caused  them  to  be  made  in  this  neigh- 
borhood by  hand  labor.  But  it  was  not  until  1839- 
40,  that  I  felt  encouraged  by  success,  as  the  labor 
and  cost  were  too  great  to  warrant  extensive  use; 
such  tiles  as  were  used  by  me,  gave  satisfactory 
evidence  of  their  value.  The  important  changes 
effected  on  portions  of  my  farm,  were  noticed  by 
your  present  presiding  officer,  and  so  thoroughly 
convinced  him  of  their  utility  and  necessity  of  drain- 
age, that  in  1848,  he  imported  a  machine  for  making 
drain  tiles  in  this  country.  From  that  day  the  ex- 
pense or  cost  has  been  reduced,  so  that  no  excuse 
exists  for  wet  fields,  or  grain  being  destroyed  by 
freezing  out.  From  that  day  I  have  continued  to 
construct  drains  as  fast  as  my  proper  farm  labor 
would  permit,  and  present  to  you  the  results  thus 
far  obtained. 

The  question  as  to  the  depth  of  drains  has 
always  been  one  of  interest,  and  some  uncer- 
tainty. On  this  point,  I  deem  it  absurd  to  propose 


EXPERIMENTS   IN   DRAINING.  275 

any  fixed  rules,  as  the  depth  must  depend  upon 
the  formation  of  the  land  and  nature  of  the  soil. 
The  rule  adopted  by  me,  is  first  to  select  a  good 
outlet  for  the  water,  then  to  dig  a  ditch  so  deep 
as  to  find  a  hard  bottom,  on  which  to  lay  the 
tile ;  yet  I  have  laid  many  tiles  on  clay,  and  they 
have  done  well ;  on  my  farm  this  depth  is  gene- 
rally found  at  two  and  a  half  to  three  feet  in  depth, 
and  I  believe  no  drains  ought  to  be  less  than  two 
and  a  half  feet  in  depth.  The  distance  between  the 
drains  is  regulated  by  the  character  of  the  soil;  if 
it  is  open  or  porous,  drains  three  or  four  rods  apart 
may  thoroughly  drain  it,  while  on  more  tenacious 
soils,  two  rods  apart  may  be  needed.  In  most  cases, 
where  my  fields  lay  nearly  level,  it  has  been  found 
necessary  to  construct  the  drains  nearer  to  each 
other,  adopting  as  a  rule,  that  the  drains  should 
always  reach  the  point  of  the  field  where  water  is 
indicated  to  rise,  and  that  is  always  at  or  near  the 
highest  part  of  the  field,  although  that  may  only  be 
observed  when  there  is  much  water  in  the  earth 
and  the  springs  full,  and  when  the  field  is  in  wheat 
or  clover ;  at  such  elevations,  I  put  my  drains 
deeper  and  nearer  each  other  to  make  sure  to  keep 
the  water  all  under  ground,  using  smaller  tile  lead- 
ing to  the  main  or  sub-main  drains. 


276  EXPERIMENTS   IN   DEAINING. 

This  rule  has  been  important,  for  when  opening 
ditches  on  the  low  grounds  the  water  has  flowed  with 
a  force  to  induce  most  people  to  believe  that  it  was 
derived  from  springs  close  by,  when  possibly  the 
spring  may  be  some  60  or  80  rods  distant  at  or  near 
the  most  elevated  part  of  the  field,  which,  when 
reached,  may  save  much  expense  in  draining  the 
lower  lands.  This  shows  the  necessity  of  thoroughly 
examining  the  land  to  be  drained  in  the  wettest 
season.  The  main  drains  occupy  the  valleys  or 
lowest  grounds,  receiving  the  lateral  drains  and  col- 
lected water.  They  are  constructed  of  larger  tiles, 
and  discretion  and  care  are  very  necessary  to 
apportion  the  main  drains  to  the  quantity  of  water 
to  be  discharged.  In  several  instances  I  have  found 
it  necessary  to  lay  a  double  row  of  four-inch  tile  in 
main  drains  to  carry  oif  the  quantity  of  water  col- 
lected by  the  smaller  tile.  I  have  generally  used 
the  half  round  or  horse-shoe  tile,  as  they  are  called. 
The  four-inch  tiles  are  in  most  cases  large  enough 
for  main  drains,  and  they  discharge  a  body  of  water 
far  greater  than  most  persons  would  believe,  unless 
they  witnessed  their  action.  There  may  be  places 
where  larger  tiles  are  needed.  In  one  instance  I 
found  it  necessary  to  use  six-inch  tiles  for  sixty  rodo, 
and  laid  them  in  double  rows.  This  would  only  be 


EXPERIMENTS   IN   DRAINING.  277 

necessary  where  the  thaws  of  early  spring  or  heavy 
summer  rains  are  apt  to  collect  large  quantities  of 
water  on  the  surface.  To  prevent  a  wash  of  the  sur- 
face in  such  places  I  have  at  regular  distances  filled 
the  ditch  directly  over  the  tiles  with  small  stones 
for  a  length  of  from  12  to  18  inches,  the  stones  to 
rise  a  little  above  the  surface  to  prevent  the  covering 
of  the  stones  by  the  plow ;  through  these  stones  the 
surface  water  will  pass  rapidly  down  into  the  tiles 
and  be  carried  off  at  once.  When  the  tiles  are  laid 
in  the  ditches  with  regularity  and  care,  the  earth  is 
thrown  in  by  a  plow,  having  a  double-tree  nine  and 
a  half  feet  long,  to  enable  a  horse  to  go  on  each  side 
of  the  ditch,  which  is  a  rapid  and  economical  way 
of  filling  them.  In  regard  to  cost  I  find  that  drains 
constructed  with  two-inch  tiles  can  be  finished  com- 
plete for  30  cents  per  rod ;  yet  something  must 
depend  on  the  digging,  whether  the  earth  be  hard 
or  soft,  and  the  distance  to  draw  the  tiles;  mine 
have  been  drawn  five  miles,  and  I  find  that  two- 
inch  tiles  are  large  enough  except  for  main  and  sub- 
main  drains.  In  my  own  case  I  was  compelled  to 
feel  my  own  way  and  discover  the  best  system  and 
best  adaptation  to  my  lands;  consequently  the  drains 
have  cost  me  more  than  they  would  if  I  were  to 
construct  them  with  my  present  experience.  In 


278  EXPERIMENTS   IN   DRAINING. 

order  to  show  the  benefits  derived  by  me,  the  follow- 
ing remarks  will  be  necessary —  to  me  the  results 
are  very  satisfactory  and  conclusive.  My  farm  is 
on  the  east  side  of  the  Seneca  Lake,  opposite  to 
Geneva  and  immediately  adjoining  the  farm  of  your 
honorable  President,  John  Delafield,  Esq.  About 
six  years  ago  I  began  to  drain  a  field  on  the  boun- 
dary line  between  Mr.  Delafield  and  myself;  the 
field  contains  about  20  acres,  of  which  six  were  then 
subject  to  drainage  ;  the  six  acres  had  seldom  given 
a  remunerating  crop,  even  of  grass ;  after  draining 
the  six  acres,  the  whole  field  was  plowed  and  pre- 
pared for  corn,  two  acres  being  reserved  for  pota- 
toes. The  usual  care  was  given  to  the  cultivation 
of  the  whole  crop,  which,  during  its  growth,  showed 
a  marked  difference  between  the  drained  and  un- 
drained  portions  of  the  field  ;  the  yield  of  this  field 
proved  to  be  the  largest  ever  raised,  as  I  believe,  in 
the  county,  the  product  being  eighty-three  bushels 
and  over,  per  acre  ;  when  the  corn  was  husked  and 
housed,  it  was  weighed  and  measured  in  the  ear, 
and  allowing  seventy-five  pounds  to  the  bushel,  as 
has  been  customary  in  this  region,  for  corn  and  cob, 
the  product  was  as  above  stated.  This  field  attracted 
much  attention,  from  my  neighbors  and  other  gen- 
tlemen from  more  distant  places ;  it  was  examined 


EXPERIMENTS    IN    DRAINING.  279 

at  the  time  of  draining,  and  after  plowing,  both 
the  first  and  second  season,  permitting  the  parties 
to  walk  on  the  drained  parts,  without  any  undue 
moisture,  while  all  other  undrained  land  in  the 
neighborhood  was  muddy,  and  as  before  stated,  the 
corn  was  found  to  be  far  more  vigorous  in  the  plant 
and  abundant  in  the  grain.  In  the  following  season 
after  the  corn,  I  cropped  it  with  barley,  and  found 
the  drained  land  produced  altogether  the  finest 
plant,  and  the  best  yield  of  grain  ;  when  the  barley 
was  harvested,  I  prepared  the  field  and  cropped  it 
with  wheat.  The  difference  again  was  so  striking 
and  distinct  in  favor  of  the  drained  land,  that  I  felt 
the  propriety  of  thoroughly  draining  the  whole  field, 
which  was  completed  without  loss  of  time,  at  a  cost 
of  twenty-two  dollars  per  acre  for  the  whole  field. 
I  then  plowed  and  sowed  with  barley  and  seeded 
with  clover ;  of  the  latter  I  cut  a  very  large  crop  last 
summer,  and  not  a  square  foot  of  the  clover  froze 
out,  and  now  I  can  rely  on  a  good  crop  of  any  thing 
I  may  sow  or  plant.  I  had  previously  drained  seve- 
ral other  fields,  or  at  least  those  parts  that  needed 
drains.  Encouraged  by  a  considerable  increase  of 
products  derived  from  my  farm  from  draining,  I 
determined  to  extend  the  system  as  rapidly  as  con- 
venience and  circumstances  would  permit.  Upon 


280  EXPERIMENTS    IN    DRAINING. 

*> 

examination,  it  appeared  necessary  to  possess  a 
piece  of  ground  belonging  to  a  neighbor,  that  I 
might  secure  a  good  and  sure  outlet  for  the  water 
from  some  of  my  upland  fields  that  required  drain- 
ing in  places.  With  this  view  I  purchased  10  -f/p 
acres  of  low  land  saturated  with  water.  A  part  of 
this  land,  say  about  four  acres,  from  twelve  to 
eighteen  inches  of  the  surface  was  a  black  vegetable 
mould  lying  on  a  stratum  of  clay  of  the  same  depth, 
under  which  I  found  a  hard  bottom  for  my  tiles,  not 
over  three  feet  in  depth ;  I  felt  persuaded  that  those 
ten  acres  were  wet  from  my  own  upland,  as  well  as 
from  my  neighbor's  wet  land  adjoining.  The  first 
ditch  I  dug  was  directly  on  the  line  betwixt  the  land 
I  got  of  my  neighbor,  and  that  he  still  owns.  This 
I  found  cut  off  all  the  water  on  that  side.  I  then 
commenced  draining  that  10  TV<r  acres  ;  also  about 
thirty  acres  of  upland  :  a  large  proportion  of  the 
upland  did  not  require  draining.  In  the  two  pieces, 
which,  made  into  one  field,  contained  about  forty 
acres,  I  laid  1,072  i  rods  of  drain  which  have  drained 
the  whole  extent  in  a  thorough  manner.  The  flow 
of  water  is  so  large  at  times,  I  was  compelled  to 
use  a  large  number  of  the  largest  sized  tiles ;  and 
for  main  drains,  as  I  had  to  have  three,  I  had  to  lay 
double  rows  of  four-inch  tiles ;  and  in  one  locality  I 


EXPERIMENTS    IN    DRAINING.  281 

had  to  use  a  double  row  of  six-inch  tiles  for  over 
fifty  rods  ;  this  received  a  great  flow  of  water  from 
a  public  road,  which  was  let  into  the  tiles  by  dig- 
ging a  basin  at  the  upper  end  of  the  drain  and  then 
filling  with  small  stones  over  the  tiles.  These  extra 
sized  tiles  increased  the  expense  of  these  drains, 
making  1,072  J  rods  to  cost  about  40  cents  per  rod. 
The  first  year  after  completing  the  drains  on  this 
field,  the  whole  or  nearly  the  whole,  upland  and  all, 
.was  planted  with  corn ;  the  season  was  not  favor- 
able for  that  crop  in  this  neighborhood,  yet  the  crop 
was  fair,  say  full  40  bushels  shelled  corn  to  the  acre  ; 
the  low  ground  was  excellent,  where  nothing  but 
coarse  grass  grew  for  twenty  years  before.  This 
year,  1851,  I  harvested  from  this  field  a  crop  of 
wheat,  and  a  heavier  crop  I  never  saw  to  stand  up. 
Heretofore  many  acres  of  wheat  were  lost  on  the 
upland  by  freezing  out,  and  none  would  grow  on  the 
low  lands.  Now  there  is  no  loss  from  that  cause ; 
only  two  small  patches,  in  all  less  than  one  quarter 
of  an  acre,  were  lodged  ;  in  fact,  the  whole  field 
was  so  even  that  it  was  difficult  to  pronounce  any 
five  acres  worse  than  the  rest.  The  wheat  fly  or 
weevil  injured  it  a  little,  but  I  think  not  a  great  deal ; 
I  have  not  yet  thrashed  enough  to  know  the  yield 
of  wheat  per  acre.  The  wet  ground  got  from  my 


282  EXPERIMENTS    IN    DRAINING. 

neighbor  was  the  source  of  much  curiosity  to  all 
around,  as  none  would  "believe  wheat  could  be 
ripened  on  land  so  long  saturated  with  water.  It 
was  watered,  therefore,  from  the  time  it  came  above 
ground,  in  the  fall,  until  the  last  of  it  was  harvested. 
The  result  was  a  crop  of  wheat,  from  that  ground, 
abundant  in  quantity  and  excellent  in  quality. 

Such,  gentlemen,  is  the  result  of  my  labor  in 
draining.  I  have  forty  acres  of  wheat,  now  growing 
on  thoroughly  drained  land.  The  improvements  in 
my  fields  and  crops  have  been  great  and  satisfactory, 
giving  me  fine  crops  of  wheat,  where  formerly  it 
froze  out.  So  well  satisfied  am  I  of  the  advantages 
derived  from  the  system,  that  I  have  drained  six 
acres  this  fall ;  and  shall  continue  to  drain  while  I 
have  a  wet  spot  on  my  farm.  Your  premium  list 
requires  that  I  should  give  the  increased  value  of 
the  drained  land.  I  feel  it  difficult  to  state  it  in 
figures.  Our  farms  here  are  assessed  at  from  $60  to 
$70  per  acre  on  the  tax  books.  One  view  of  the 
value  may  be  taken.  Land  wholly  unproductive, 
and  land  worth  $60  to  $70  per  acre.  Another  view 
may  be  taken  in  the  difference  in  the  cost  of  im- 
provement, say  about  $22  or  $24  per  acre,  and  its 
cash  value,  at  this  time,  of  $65  per  acre ;  but  on 
such  land  as  I  have,  if  I  get  two  crops  of  wheat 


EXPERIMENTS    IN    DRAINING. 

from  my  drained  land,  I  am  paid  by  the  excess  of 
crop,  so  as  to  cover  all  cost  of  draining,  and  some- 
times more  than  paid  by  one  crop,  that  is,  by  the 
excess  of  crop  beyond  what  it  would  have  been  had 
the  land  remained  undrained. 

The  extent  of  this  system  of  improvement,  is  not, 
with  me,  sufficient  to  give  comparative  data,  or  to 
induce  advances  on  established  values  of  farms 
originating  in  drainage.  I  hope  others  may  have 
exceeded  my  sixteen  miles  of  drains,  made  with  tile  ; 
then,  by  comparison  of  costs  and  results,  we  may 
better  ascertain  the  increased  value  of  our  acres. 
Respectfully  yours, 

JOHN  JOHNSTON", 

Near  Geneva. 


EXPERIMENTS  IN  DRAINING. 

BY   THERON   G.  YEOMANS. 

WALWORTH,  WAYNE  COUNTY,  N.  Y. 
In  pursuance  of  the  expressed  wishes  of  the  New 
York  State  Agricultural  Society  to  collect  practical 
information  on  the  subject  of  draining,  I  will  proceed 
to  give  as  explicitly  as  my  numerous  engagements 
will  allow,  an  account  of  what  I  have  done  during 


284  EXPERIMENTS    IN    DEAINING. 

the  last  three  years  in  this  important  branch  of 
agricultural  improvement. 

First,  in  reference  to  soil  and  situation  of  the 
land  :  The  soil  is  mostly  a  loam  with  a  slight  mix- 
ture of  sand  and  gravel,  and  in  some  of  the  -lower 
places  a  portion  of  mucky  or  decomposed  vegetable 
surface  soil,  which  has  doubtless  been  formed  by 
the  wash  of  the  land  around,  and  which  has  settled 
in  these  places.  The  land  is  elevated  much  above 
the  average  of  lands  in  this  immediate  vicinity,  and 
lies  in  a  rolling  and  sloping  position,  so  much  so 
that  my  draining  operations  have  caused  nearly  all 
who  beheld  them  to  wonder  that  I  should  incur  so 
great  an  expense  in  draining  land  which  was  already 
(as  they  thought)  quite  dry  enough.  The  loam  soil 
extends  to  the  depth  of  15  or  18  inches,  below  which 
there  is  uniformly  a  tenacious  or  hardpan  sub-soil, 
which  is  about  as  impervious  to  water  as  an  unmixed 
clay,  arid  which  when  dry  is  very  hard;  so  that  in 
digging  the  drains  a  well  sharpened  pick-axe  is 
always  necessary  as  soon  as  the  surface  soil  is 
removed,  which  is  done  with  a  common  spade.  The 
sub-soil,  after  being  made  loose  with  a  pick-axe,  is 
thrown  out  with  a  round-pointed  long-handle  shovel ; 
and  the  ditch  is  only  made  wide  enough  for  the 
operator  to  work  the  shovel  in  it ;  and  he,  standing 


EXPERIMENTS   IN   DRAINING.  285 

one  foot  before  the  other  in  the  ditch,  plies  the 
shovel,  bearing  the  forward  hand  upon  the  forward 
knee  as  a  fulcrum,  operates  with  comparative  ease 
and  advantage.  The  first  drains  which  I  constructed, 
in  the  spring  of  1849,  consisted  of  about  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  rods,  which  were  dug  2i  feet  deep, 
and  one  foot  wide  at  the  bottom,  and  filled  with 
stones  within  a  foot  of  the  surface,  first  laying  the 
bottom  stones  so  as  to  form  a  throat  or  channel  for 
the  passage  of  the  water  ;  these  were  then  covered 
with  straw  and  the  ditch  covered  with  earth. 

This  kind  of  drain  drains  the  land  well  and 
quickly,  except  that  I  find  it  somewhat  liable  to 
clog  or  stop  up,  either  from  the  wash  of  earth  by 
the  water  or  from  the  digging  of  rats,  meadow  moles 
or  mice ;  this  I  regard  as  a  very  serious  objection 
to  stone  drains,  as  it  is  a  difficult  thing  to  find  the 
precise  locality  of  such  obstructions  or  remove  them, 
as  a  little  experience  will  convince  any  one.  In 
the  fall  of  1849  I  procured  of  two-inch  horse-shoe 
tile  sufficient  to  lay  about  230  rods,  which  were  laid 
on  a  side  hill,  the  principal  drains  passing  down  the 
hill  in  an  oblique  or  angling  direction,  entering  a 
cross-  drain,  so  that  they  all  terminated  at  one  outlet. 
These  have  operated  well  and  drained  the  land 

effectually,  (having  been  laid  at  about  50  feet  apart,) 
13 


286  EXPERIMENTS   IN   DRAINING. 

except  that  in  two  or  three  places  they  became  ob- 
structed by  sand  and  gravel  that  had  washed  down 
by  the  current  of  water  and  filled  the  tile.  These 
obstructions,  however,  were  much  more  readily  dis- 
covered and  more  easily  removed  than  those  in  the 
stone  drains.  In  the  spring  of  1850  I  purchased  the 
pipes  or  round  tiles,  and  during  the  season  con- 
structed 1,350  rods  of  drain,  and  in  1851  I  laid 
1,240  rods ;  and  for  the  purpose  of  giving  a  more 
definite  idea  of  the  form  of  their  construction,  I  here- 
with annex  a  diagram,  as  near  as  may  be,  (without 
claiming  to  be  precise,)  of  the  drains  laid  in  two 
fields,  one  of  which  was  laid  in  1850,  and  the  other 
in  1851.  The  drains  are  made  2$  feet  deep,  and 
whenever  we  find  a  slight  elevation  extending  a 
short  distance  only  it  is  made  deeper  in  order  to 
have  the  inclination  of  the  bottom  as  even  as  possi- 
ble, so  that  they  average  something  more  than  2  4 
feet  deep.  Having  the  drains  thus  opened  and  the 
tiles  being  distributed  along  the  bank,  they  are  laid 
in  by  a  man,  who,  commencing  at  the  upper  end 
of  the  ditch,  walks  backward  down  the  same,  placing 
the  tiles  in  their  places  as  he  goes,  which  may  be 
done  very  rapidly,  a  good  hand  laying  at  the  rate  of 
500  or  600  rods  per  day;  being  sure  they  lie  in  a  firm 
immovable  position,  then  place  a  small  quantity 


EXPERIMENTS    IN    DEAINING.  287 

• 

of  straw  or  grass  over  the  tile  along  the  drains 
previous  to  filling  with  earth,  in  order  to  prevent 
any  fine  dirt  from  falling  through  the  crevices  into 
the  tiles.  In  filling  the  ditches,  put  in  first  the  earth 
which  was  taken  from  the  surface,  as  this  is  more 
open  and  loose,  and  the  water  will  always  more 
readily  find  its  way  through  it  to  the  tile  below ;  and 
to  do  this  more  readily,  in  throwing  out  the  earth,  put 
the  surface  soil  on  one  side,  and  the  sub-soil  or  hard- 
pan  on  the  other.  In  bringing  one  drain  into  an- 
other, I  never  unite  them  at  right  angles,  but  always 
aim  to  have  the  upper  side  angle  much  the  smallest, 
so  that  the  water  coming  from  one  into  the  other 
shall  obstruct  the  current  of  water  in  either  or  both 
as  little  as  possible,  and  for  this  purpose  I  frequently 
form  an  angle  in  the  side  drain  a  short  distance 
above  its  union  with  the  other,  so  as  to  unite  them 
at  any  angle  desired  ;  and  at  this  junction  or  connect- 
ing point  I  break  one  or  two  tiles,  if  necessary,  in  such 
manner  as  to  permit  the  two  upper  branches  to 
unite  as  well  with  the  lower  one  as  possible,  and  in 
the  form  of  the  forked  branches  of  a  tree,  and  to 
secure  this  connection  more  perfectly,  some  tile,  or 
pieces  of  tile  or  stones  are  carefully  laid  in  about 
this  point,  and  for  several  feet  below,  so  that  if  all 
the  water  from  the  side  drain  does  not  readily  enter 


288  EXPERIMENTS    IN    DRAINING. 

the  other  at  the  precise  point  contemplated,  it  will 
find  access  from  among  the  stones,  etc.,  just  below. 
Having  thus  united  several  small  drains,  it  be- 
comes necessary  to  lay  a  larger  tile  in  the  drain 
below,  to  carry  away  all  the  water  furnished  by  the 
several  small  drains  above,  now  united  in  one  ;  this 
is  first  enlarged  by  using  a  three-inch  tile  in  place 
of  the  two-inch  used  above  ;  then  still  further  down, 
and  after  other  drains  shall  have  been  united,  by  a 
four-inch  pipe,  and  then  perhaps  a  four-inch  and 
two-inch,  side  by  side,  and  so  on,  according  to  the 
number,  extent  and  capacity  of  the  smaller  drains 
that  empty  into  it ;  and,  in  one  instance,  I  thus  en- 
larged one  principal  drain,  till  it  consisted  of  three 
four-inch  tiles  placed  in  one  ditch  ;  and  many  times 
during  the  year  past,  I  have  seen  them  all  discharg- 
ing water  to  the  extent  of  their  capacity,  thus  afford- 
ing to  those  who  have  witnessed  it,  and  who  doubted 
their  successful  operation,  a  satisfactary  demonstra- 
tion of  their  practical  utility,  which  no  amount  of 
merely  theoretical  illustration  and  argument  could 
have  equaled  ;  and  I  doubt  not  that  the  outlet  of 
about  500  rods  of  my  drain,  terminating  as  it  does 
by  the  road-side,  and  coming  from  land  apparently 
as  dry  as  any  other,  will  do  more  to  convince  those 
who  shall  notice  it,  of  their  great  value,  than  the 


EXPERIMENTS    IN    DRAINING.  289 

reading  of  all  the  books  that  have  ever  been  written 
on  that  subject,  numerous  and  valuable  as  they 
may  be.  I  greatly  prefer  the  round  pipes  to  stones 
or  the  horse-shoe  tiles,  as  there  is  no  channel  of 
water  under  them  to  wear  away  the  earth,  so  as  to 
allow  them  to  move  from  their  original  position,  and 
there  is  no  possibility  of  their  becoming  filled  up 
with  earth  by  mice  or  meadow  moles ;  they  are  also 
much  less  likely  to  be  broken  by  handling,  or  trans- 
porting from  place  to  place.  My  small  or  upper 
drains  are  of  two-inch  pipes,  and  are  enlarged  be- 
low, as  before  mentioned.  I  have  purchased  the 
greater  share  of  my  tiles  at  Waterloo,  (30  miles  dis- 
tant,) but  the  very  large  ones,  or  all  sizes  larger  than 
two-inch,  I  get  to  best  advantage  at  Albany.  As 
many  drains  should  terminate  and  pass  out  at  one 
outlet  as  possible,  so  as  to  require  but  little  care  to 
see  that  they  are  unobstructed  ;  and  this  outlet 
should  be  of  wood  or  stone.  I  prefer  wood,  so  that 
the  tiles  will  not  be  exposed  to  frost  when  wet, 
which  they  will  not  withstand.  One  of  these  drains 
takes  away  the  water  from  my  barn-cellar,  and  an- 
other from  the  cellar  under  my  house  ;  and  a  third 
one,  the  waste  water  from  about  the  well ;  and  to 
furnish  water  for  my  stock  in  the  fields,  I  have  dug 
a  well  six  to  eight  feet  deep,  and  found  a  durable 


290  EXPERIMENTS    IN    DRAINING. 

supply  of  water,  which  I  carry  out  far  enough  clown 
the  hill  or  slope,  to  bring  it  above  the  surface  of  the 
ground  and  into  a  cask,  by  means  of  a  lead  pipe, 
which  is  laid  in  the  same  ditch  with  the  tile.  After 
getting  a  short  distance  from  the  well  or  fountain, 
the  surplus  water  from  this  cask  or  tub,  (for  there  is 
constantly  a  half-inch  stream  running  in  and  out  of 
it,)  runs  again  down  the  outside  of  the  tub  into  the 
tile  drain  below,  which  passes  under  the  cask,  leav- 
ing all  about  the  cask  entirely  dry.  The  fountain  is 
stoned  up  like  a  well,  within  two  feet  of  the  surface 
of  the  ground,  and  covered  over  first  with  a  large  flat 
stone,  and  then  with  earth,  so  that  it  is  entirely  ob- 
scured and  out  of  the  way.  I  have  three  such 
watering  places  on  my  farm,  and  the  cost  additional 
to  my  drains,  does  not  exceed  ten  dollars  each  on 
the  average.  Their  real  value,  I  will  not  attempt 
to  estimate. 

The  two-inch  tile  cost,  at  Waterloo,  $10  per  1,000, 
freight  by  railroad  and  wagons  $4.50  per  1,000 ; 
1,000  lay  about  75  rods,  so  that  the  cost  of  the  tile 
per  rod  is  about  19  cents ;  add  one  cent  per  rod  for 
laying  in  the  tile  and  the  straw,  makes  the  tile,  when 
laid,  cost  20  cents  per  rod.  I  pay  my  workmen  20 
cents  per  rod  for  digging  and  filling ;  so  that  the 
cost  of  the  drain  with  the  two-inch  tile  is  about  40 


EXPERIMENTS    IN    DRAINING.  291 

cents  per  rod,  and  with  four-inch  tile  about  56  cents. 
The  laborer  who  does  this  work,  (for  one  man  does 
about  all  of  it,)  clears  through  the  whole  season  about 
$1.37  cents  per  day  ;  and  as  an  evidence  that  the 
sub-soil  is  hard,  I  will  mention  that  the  sharpening 
of  the  picks  for  the  1,200  rods  cost  over  $5 ;  and 
this  fact,  taken  in  connection  with  the  wages  he 
earned,  will  show  that  he  is  such  a  laborer  as  is 
seldom  found  ;  and  I  will  say  that  his  equal  1  have 
never  found.  His  name  is  Timothy  McGarvy,  and 
should  not  be  omitted  in  this  article. 

Some  of  the  advantages  derived  from  draining, 
are  that  the  ground  becomes  about  as  dry  in  two  or 
three  days  after  the  frost  comes  out  in  the  spring, 
or  after  a  heavy  rain,  as  it  would  do  in  as  many 
weeks  before  draining ;  enabling  the  farmer  to  work 
his  land  at  almost  any  time  he  may  desire  to  do  so  ; 
it  also  dries  it  uniformly  alike,  all  over  the  field,  so 
that  in  plowing,  he  does  not  find  spots  of  wet  and 
dry,  but  is  all  in  good  condition  at  once.  It  causes 
the  lowest  places,  which  are  generally  too  wet  at 
seed  time,  and  consequently  produced  but  little  if 
any  crop,  to  produce  the  best  of  any  part  of  the 
field,  being  generally  the  richest  soil,  from  having 
had  the  wash  of  the  surface  of  the  land  about  it  for 
many  years. 


EXPERIMENTS   IN  DRAINING. 

Some  of  the  land  I  first  drained  had  been  planted 
with  young  orchard  trees  ;  and  in  the  wettest  places 
some  trees  died  the  first  winter,  and  a  great  num- 
ber the  second  ;  and  some  young  nursery  trees  on 
the  same  ground  were  nearly  thrown  out  of  the 
ground  by  the  frost. 

After  draining  it,  I  replaced  the  orchard  trees, 
and  all  have  grown  well ;  and  the  first  crop  of 
nursery  trees,  which  I  was  compelled  to  remove  to 
save  them,  before  draining,  have  been  replaced  by 
•others  since  draining,  and  they  have  succeeded  per- 
fectly ;  so  now  I  may  well  say,  that  if  we  desire  to 
deprive  Jack  Frost  of  his  power  to  do  us  harm,  we 
should  keep  everything  as  dry  as  possible  which  is 
within  his  reach  and  liable  to  injury.  And  I  am  from 
my  own  experience  fully  convinced  that  for  whatever 
crop,  and  especially  any  crop  liable  to  be  injured  by 
frost  in  winter,  such  as  wheat,  clover,  etc.,  whether 
the  season  be  wet  or  dry,  if  the  soil  retains  its 
moisture  too  long  at  any  season  of  the  year,  (and 
most  soils  do,)  it  will  be  materially  benefited  by 
draining  ;  and  in  fact  I  am  well  convinced  that  most 
of  the  "winter-killed  young  fruit  trees,  especially  the 
peach,  in  many  places,  as  well  as  the  winter-killing 
of  many  valuable  shrubs,  vines  and  evergreens, 
which  survive  the  winter  in  some  places  in  this 


EXPERIMENTS    IN    DRAINING.  293 

latitude,  and  are  destroyed  in  others,  is  more  to  be 
attributed  to  excessive  moisture  in  the  soil  during 
cold  weather  than  to  all  other  causes  combined. 
}nly  estimate  the  increased  value  of  the  land 
by  saying  that  I  have  the  past  year  made  over 
1,200  rods  on  20  acres,  at  a  cost  of  about  $25  per 
acre  ;  and  that  I  should  not  permit  such  land  to  re- 
main without  such  draining,  even  were  the  expense 
doubled.  Most  of  the  lands  so  drained  have  been 
purchased  by  me  immediately  preceding  the  con- 
struction of  the  drains,  and  their  very  recent  con- 
struction precludes  the  possibility  of  giving  the 
specific  and  comparative  productive  capacity  before 
and  after  draining  ;  though  on  much  of  it  very  light 
crops  have  been  grown  for  many  years  past,  and  no 
good  crop  of  wheat  has  been  raised  on  it  for  a  long 
time;  but  the  reason  has  not  heretofore,  to  my 
knowledge,  been  ascribed  to  an  excess  of  water, 
which  I  believe  to  have  been  the  principal  cause  of 
the  non-productiveness  of  the  land.  From  the  ex- 
perience of  two  seasons  on  the  small  quantity  first 
drained,  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  increased  value 
of  the  land  is  much  greater  than  the  cost  of  con- 
structing the  drains,  but  more  time  is  needed  to  fully 
test  with  accuracy  the  benefits  to  result  therefrom. 

Thus  1  have  in  three  years  constructed  over  nine 
13* 


294 


EXPERIMENTS   IN   DRAINING. 


miles  of  drain  of  the  three  kinds  herein  named,  on 
land  which  most  farmers  thought  unnecessary  to 
drain,  and  which  they  felt  assured  could  not  be 
drained  with  profit.  But,  notwithstanding,  I  doubt 
not  the  result  will  be  not  only  a  source  of  profit  to 
myself,  but  a  great  inducement  to  many  others  to 
go  about  the  work  themselves. 

Thus  I  have  rather  hastily  thrown  together  the 
result  of  my  practical  experience  on  this  subject. 

"Which  is  respectfully  submitted  for  your  consid- 
eration. 

T.  G.  YEOMANS. 

B.  P.  JOHNSON,  Esq., 

Sec.  jy.  T.  S.  Agr>l.  Society. 


DANFORTH,  HAWLEY  &  CO. 


230    MAIN    STREET,   BUFFALO, 

OFFER  FOB  SALE: 
I. 

SCHOOL  TESTAMENT. 

Size  of  Bible  Society's  cheap  Testament,  (a  neat  and  well  bound  Ed.) 

II. 

SCOTT'S  HISTORY. 

A  Manual  of  History  of  the  United  States,  for  the  use  of  Schools. 
By  DAVID  B.  SCOTT,  Principal  of  Ward  School  No.  25,  N.  Y.  City. 

III. 

SAYINGS  AND  DOINGS  OF  ANIMALS. 

Twelve  Stories  of  the  Sayings  and  Doings  of  Animals.     By  Mrs. 
R.  LEE,  author  of  "African  Wanderer,"  <fec.     (Illustrated.) 

IV. 

TALPA: 

Or,  the  Chronicles  of  a  Clay  Farm.    An  Agricultural  Fragment,  by 

C.  W.  H.,  with  Introduction  and  Notes  by  LEWIS  F.  ALLEN.     To 

which  are  added  two  Prize  Essays  on  Tile  Drainage. 

V. 

COLBURN'S  ARITHMETIC. 

Intellectual  Arithmetic,  upon  the  Inductive  Method  of  Instruction. 
By  WAEHEN  COLBURN,  A.  M. 

VI. 

THE  NEW  ENGLAND  PRIMER. 

To  which  is  added  the  shorter  Catechism. 


DANFORTH,  HAWLEY  &  CO. 

230  MAIN  STREET,  BUFFALO, 

OFFER   TO    THE    TRADE,    AT    LIBERAL    DISCOUNTS,  THE    FOLLOWING 


PASS  BOOKS. 

No.  1,  Paper.  No.  1,  Sheep,  thick, 

No.  3,    do.  No.  3,     do.      do. 

No.  5,    do.  No.  5,     do.      do. 

No.  7,    do.  No.  7,     do.      do. 

No.  1,  Sheep.  No.  1,  Roan  Emb. 

No.  3,    do.  No.  3,    do.      do. 

No.  5,    do.  No.  5,    do.      do. 

No.  7,    do.  No.  7,    do.      do. 

TUCK    MEM'S. 

No.  1,  Full  thick.  No.  1,  Double  thick. 

No.  2,   do.    do.  No.  2,      do.        do. 

No.  3,   do.     do.  No.  3,     do.        do. 

No.  4,   do.     do.  No.  4.      do.        do. 

No.  5,   do.    do.     (long.)  No.  5,      do.        do.  (long.) 

No.  1,  Metallic. 

No.  2,     do. 

No.  3,     do. 

No.  4,     do. 

No.  5,     do.        (long.) 

Each  of  the  above  Nos.  and  Styles  of  Pass  Books  and  Tuck  Mem's 
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and  $>  Sf  cts.  Price  the  same. 


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